MIT researcher Seth Lloyd believes that a new architecture for quantum random access memory (QRAM) could be used to reduce the energy wasted by random access memory (RAM) as well as for completely anonymous Internet searchers. Classical computing requires the use of RAM to retrieve information, but RAM design is wasteful and subject to interference, Lloyd says. Lloyd worked with Vittorio Giovannetti at the NEST-CNR-INFM in Pisa, Italy, and Lorenzo Maccone at the University of Pavia, Italy, to create a system that works as QRAM. Lloyd says their QRAM architecture was discovered when his colleagues and him were researching how to make QRAM work on classical RAM design. He says QRAM is a "sneakier" way of accessing RAM. In traditional RAM, the first bit of an address throws two switches, the second throws four, and so on, Lloyd says. With QRAM, "all the bits of the address only interact with two switches," Lloyd says. The energy saved using QRAM is not enough to offset the larger energy problems associated with classical computing, and Lloyd says QRAM is slower than RAM. However, he says QRAM's benefits can be applied to quantum Internet searches. "If you had a quantum Internet, then this would be useful," he says. "This offers a huge decrease in energy used and an increase in robustness." For this to work, Lloyd says "dark fiber" is needed, and although it is already being used for some classical communications, a quantum Internet would need more.