Japan’s SoftBank has shown that a version of quantum computing has potential for improving the performance of 5G networks by optimizing settings of individual base stations more efficiently than classical methods. The company has succeeded in improving the performance of Carrier Aggregation (CA) across a 5G network in the Tokyo area, using a so-called Ising machine to configure the links. This machine allows large-scale combinatorial problems involving multiple variables to be effectively encoded in hardware, allowing different combinations to be assessed almost simultaneously. SoftBank claims the approach enables the CA coverage area to be expanded, with up to 50% increased data transmission capacity, compared with conventional optimization. The average downlink data speed was about 10% higher than conventional settings could…