While much of the world is locked in a race to harness traditional computers to create the next groundbreaking application, there is another, potentially more powerful option: quantum computers.

One day after kicking off its annual I/O developer conference to much fanfare, Google quietly announced a new partnership with NASA that will use quantum computing to bring an advanced approach to some of the world's most challenging research efforts.

The combined effort will result in a new research facility called the Quantum Artificial Intelligence Lab. The device housed inside the lab will be the 512-qubit D-Wave Two from D-Wave Systems, a Vancouver-based company that first made headlines when it sold Lockheed Martin the world's first commercial quantum computer back in 2011. The Universities Space Research Association (USRA) will work with the lab to invite researchers from around the world to share working time on the machine.

"We hope [the lab] helps researchers construct more efficient and more accurate models for everything from speech recognition, to Web search, to protein folding," the lab's director of engineering, Hartmut Neven, said in a blog post. "We actually think quantum machine learning may provide the most creative problem-solving process under the known laws of physics."

Although Google has not revealed the price being paid for its quantum computer, at least one report claimed that Lockheed Martin's equipment cost the company $10 million. Interestingly, D-Wave System counts Amazon founder and CEO Jeff Bezos as a primary investor, throughBezos Expeditions, along with In-Q-Tel, a venture capital firm designed to support the efforts of U.S. intelligence agencies. D-Wave Systems began tackling the arduous task of building a commercial quantum computer way back in the '90s, a process explained in detail by founder Geordie Rose in a new set of video interviews (below) released just yesterday.

As for the technology itself, quantum computing combines the traditional binary dynamic of computing with quantum mechanics. This new approach toward computing allows us to put bits of information into their 0 and 1 states at the same time, essentially allowing researchers to view a number of possibilities simultaneously. Accelerating computation on a massive scale, quantum computing promises to allow researchers to better examine patterns in everything from weather systems to the stock market.

According to Google, the general goal of the Quantum Artificial Intelligence Lab will be to examine how quantum computing might advance machine learning. Google recently made a very public commitment to this area of research by hiring inventor and futurist Ray Kurzweil as director of engineering.

Google's announcement, meanwhile, comes shortly after it was revealed that a team of researchers at Los Alamos National Labs in New Mexico has been successfully running a mini quantum Internet for 2.5 years.

Read more:

NASA, Google Launch Quantum Artificial Intelligence Lab