A Working Quantum Computer in 3 Years?

Posted by timothy on Tuesday June 21, 2005 @10:02PM from the not-with-my-quanta-you-don't dept.

prostoalex writes "Vancouver, BC-based D-Wave Systems got $17.5 mln from Draper Fisher Jurvetson to work on a preliminary version of a quantum computer, Technology Review reports. Delivery date? Within three years: 'It won't be a fully functional quantum computer of the sort long envisioned; but D-Wave is on track to produce a special-purpose, "noisy" piece of quantum hardware that could solve many of the physical-simulation problems that stump today's computers, says David Meyer, a mathematician working on quantum algorithms at the University of California, San Diego.'"

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Re:Quantum is just another buzzword by Anonymous Coward · 2005-06-21 22:49 · Score: 5, Informative

Your post is pure fluff. You don't know what you are talking about.

With a (good enough) quantum computer it is possible to factor large numbers (Shor's algorithm) and to break various public key cryptography. (RSA, Elliptic curve crypto). So I would say that it is clear why people want to build one.

(Though it is expected to take a while before the quantum computers are good enough. A few years ago they built one that was able to factor the number 15...)