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1 Molecule Computes Thousands of Times Faster Than a PC

Posted by timothy on from the but-only-for-certain-tasks dept.

alexhiggins732 writes with this tantalizing PopSci snippet: "A demo of a quantum calculation carried out by Japanese researchers has yielded some pretty mind-blowing results: a single molecule can perform a complex calculation thousands of times faster than a conventional computer. A proof-of-principle test run of a discrete Fourier transform — a common calculation using spectral analysis and data compression, among other things — performed with a single iodine molecule transpired very well, putting all the molecules in your PC to shame."

3 of 246 comments (clear)

  1. Re:This could be the breakthrough... by Polarina · · Score: 5, Informative

    This would more likely break Moore's Law since this molecule isn't a transistor.

  2. Re:This could be the breakthrough... by thms · · Score: 4, Informative
    From the top of my head, among these limitations are:
    • It won't solve any NP complete or even hard problems faster than a few orders of magnitude.
    • It is probabilistic, so you still need old fashioned silicon around it, and still all results will come with a P-value.
    • They need quite good cooling, as in liquid nitrogen.
  3. Re:This could be the breakthrough... by blair1q · · Score: 4, Informative

    Moore's law isn't about the tip of high-tech research. It's about the leading edge of profitable manufacturing of computational devices.

    I.e., until someone like Applied Materials or KLA Tencor is done installing a fab line for this process node, you can't count it as a data point in the history of the law.