Thus, the term includes breakthroughs such as the discovery of penicillin, and the creation of the Internet – events that helped society to advance and to get us where we are right now.

Although we’re talking about gigantic inventions and discoveries that have changed the course and history of humanity, innovation can take many shapes and sizes. Are you going to say that the individual who came up with idea of joining fabrics with a piece of metal called a needle that his creation was too small? And the first person who decided that someone with a large following on social media might be able to advertise a yoghurt?

The Bizkaia Lantik innovation team is working on a project in collaboration with Accenture – not a very large one, but one that is very powerful: the Property Registry Project. A catchy name, right?

A PROJECT THAT WILL ALLOW US (OR NOT) TO ASSESS THE PRICE OF A PIECE OF PROPERTY

The Property Registry Project is being carried out to objectively predict any property’s value at the registry office; in other words, the monetary value of a home, business premises, or any other building you can think of. The team working on this project has the goal of using quantum computing to create something special and improve upon what was there before. That is, the team aims to innovate.

Hold on, as we’re about to get technical.

Quantum computing is the type that uses the qubit as the unit instead of the well-known bit, and this means that it can do calculations with much more complex problems than classic computing. Quantum computing is what sets this project apart.

Having said this, the team isn’t using quantum computing to generate a 100% quantum model. Instead, they’re combining it with another model that is trending in computing today: Data Science (the discipline that focuses on a large amount of data for learning, discovering patterns, and extracting information). This mix allows us to create hybrid quantum/classic neural networks, a type that combines conventional and quantum layers to benefit from the best of both worlds. It’s similar to what happened to Peter Parker in Spider-Man 3 when something classic (Spider-Man’s suit) accidentally managed to fuse with something innovative (the symbiote), thus creating Venom: a superhero/villain who took advantage of all the potential he had.

Even so, the next objective of the Property Registry Project is for only the quantum part of the experiment to be used over the long term. We would call that a quantum neural network, and researchers are currently testing this type of technology to see how far the results from the quantum side can go.

You may be thinking: “Okay, but what’s day-to-day life like for the people who work on this project? What do they do when they get in front of their computers every morning?”

The first thing they had to do was to start reading up on quantum machine learning… because, of course, they had to figure out which model was the best for this case, which of them could perform the best. After deciding which model was best suited for the project, the team began to handle and process the data – as it was in raw format.

After thoroughly analysing and processing the data, the team started to pre-process it; that is, they started reducing the dimensions of the dataset (a cool word for a group of data in any structured data storage system) and transforming the data so that it could be properly added into the quantum machine learning model.

When they had all the data in order, they began to build and implement the quantum neural network that we’ve already talked so much about. They had to choose which parts of the network would be best to “train” the model.

Finally (and this is what they’re doing now as part of their daily routine, as they’ve already advanced through everything else we mentioned before), it’s time for the execution and analysis of the results. After taking care of the problems with the data and the model, the results are executed and an analysis of them is undertaken. Once they have the results, the team modifies different parameters to help optimise the machine’s performance.

All this really makes one ready and raring to go to work, right?

A PROJECT CREATED BY PEOPLE THAT LEAVES PEOPLE OUT

As we’ve said before, this experiment tries to make the estimated price on file at the property registry completely objective, having nothing to do with opinions or speculation. To achieve this, the algorithm takes several factors into account: the area where the home or commercial space is located, the floor it is on, its surface area, the usage code, the class code, and the zoning scheme (these last three items determine how the property is used – i.e., if it’s a pharmacy, a garage, a bar, etc.).

This means that we’re diving headfirst into another topic that comes up a lot when we chat with friends about new technologies: the general fear that machines have no feelings or hearts. The fact that they have no empathy or sympathy towards society makes characters like the Terminator relentless in terms of their objective… these machines don’t allow themselves to be fooled by opinions and prejudices. But, maybe, for some matters, it’s good that they don’t have feelings like we humans.

Let’s think about it: everyone is influenced by some type of variable. When looking for a flat, for example, we always opt for some areas more than others. For one person, Leioa is preferable because they used to live there when they went to college; for another, Zeanuri is better because their partner has lived there for years; and the neighbour from the third floor is more attracted to Balmaseda because it’s much closer to where they work. The Terminator would surely not opt for one flat or another based on personal attachments he feels.

Hence, in matters such as the property registry, it’s important that whoever predicts prices be someone who is totally objective, with no prejudices and who does not discriminate. Could there be anything more perfect than an algorithm or a machine that neither feels nor worries?

INNOVATION: A MATTER OF TRIAL AND ERROR

Although the team is working very hard to achieve its goal, it’s not certain that the Property Registry Project will yield the expected results. This is normal, since not all innovation projects have to reach their functional objectives. A technical result is also completely valid.

In innovation, even if the initial results aren’t functional, that doesn’t mean that they’re worthless. On the contrary, technical advances serve to pave the way in a world where experiments with quantum neural networks are still few and far between. We could say that technical breakthroughs are like a calculator. Imagine that we do an equation on paper and then we do it again with a calculator. If we get the same result both ways, it means that the tool we put to the test (the calculator) works and we can use it in other areas.

If what is proposed is achieved, we’ll be able to calculate the property registry value in a much more objective and rapid way, which constitutes a considerable advance compared to what we had before, apart from allowing us to test the limits of quantum technology and see the evolution that it has undergone. What if the goal is not achieved? Well, that’s not a problem. After all, Max Verstappen didn’t even have a licence when he started driving a Formula 1 car. Everything will come, in time; we just have to try to extract gold from places where we know it’s hiding.