Slashdot Mirror
A Working Quantum Computer in 3 Years?
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.'"
but it's not a proper quantum computer. It's based on tunneling, not entanglement.
Nope, it is a quantum computer qubit. E.g. Google for "Cooper pair boxes"
This is a solid state quantum computer, an artifical atom, where the state could be encoded as the presence or absence of charge on an island. It tunnels on and off quantum mechanically, creating a qubit. Its just how the underlying system works.
Entanglement requires the coupling of more than one qubit, and is more part of the maths of QM. However, this may be done practically through capacitve or inductive coupling for the above devices.
Sure, I mean it could be vaporware and a nice way to seperate 18 mill (US or Canidan?) from some VCs...
However, given that they have narrowed their focus (from a general purpose machine) to a special purpose machine using (they say) todays level of technology, they have a good chance..
Known and working tech + narrow problem = Engineering + Marketing = A working product
http://www.hawknest.com/
People have been building quantum computers for years now. The biggest ones these days (around 14-qubits) are NMR quantum computers, although that technique appears to have scalability issues.
Seems to me that this is only news since they plan on selling quantum-CPU time.
Well, first off, dwave already has solid state quantum computers, they are just freaking expensive, and for the number of qubits, it just isnt worth it at the moment.
:-) The end result will be more like a graphics card, where the computer sends the data to the card, and the card replies with the results. Of course, I highly doubt anything like this will be small enough to fit into a PCI slot anytime soon. Maybe a REALLY big USB device or something.
Second, we all know that we are pretty far away from shors factorization algorithm, but at least with the technology that dwave is using (cooper pairs in superconductors), there is a chance of hitting that point sometime in the future.
NMR computers are fun to play with, and are pretty cheap for the number of qubits you can use, but will not likely ever get past 15 or so qubits, because it relies (from what I understand) on each qubit needing to be in the same molecule, and they need to be different atoms, which is rough to do. It seems that alot of people think "most quantum computers are NMR"+"NMR will never work for shors algorithm with large numbers"="quantum computers will never work with shors algorithm", which is just dumb.
Dwave is far more interested in molecular simulation, which could be useful anywhere from creating new medicines, to designing new polymers for the superpants of the future.
Third, no one is stupid enough to try to build a state machine with a quantum computer
It will, however, be ideally suited to solving problems like the infamous traveling-salesman problem . . . D-Wave's chip performs exactly this type of calculation automatically, in seconds.
How many seconds?
Are they claiming that the travelling salesmen problem can be solved in polynomial time? This would be the biggest news to come out of the computer industry since the invention of the transistor. As far as I know, no quantum algorithms exist for solving NP complete problems such as the travelling salesmen problem. Can anyone here enlighten me?
I'd love to see a quantum computer! That'd be so cool. And it's the only way to implement my perfect chess program.
But even if they do get this thing to succeed, with all the technical issues solved, the business model won't work. They want to sell solutions, not hardware? So company X asks a question, but the answer is only worthwhile if competing company Y can't ask the same question. The resolution is simple, company X will patent the question! Imagine how innovation can be stiffled now -- an order of magnitude better than under the current system. It won't be long before company Y, to preempt other companies from gaining an advantage, will start to patent questions it has no intention of asking! With a little lobbying to conservative politicians, legistation will be passed to outlaw thinking entirely! Is this what we have to look forward to in three years?
Bt seriously, it's an old problem -- social systems can't keep up with technological advancements, and all attempts only make thing worse.
In theory, there's no difference between theory and practice. In practice, there is.