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Lockheed Martin Purchases First Commercial Quantum Computer

Posted by Unknown on from the yes-no-maybe-so dept.

Panaflex writes "D-Wave systems announced general availability for its 128 qubit adiabatic quantum machine just two weeks ago, and reports of its first sale to Lockheed Martin have come out." The D-Wave Systems site has a rather informative collection of quantum computing papers.

128 of 189 comments (clear)

  1. I want one... by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 3, Funny

    ...but I'm uncertain if I'll buy one. Maybe I should check with my cat.

    1. Re:I want one... by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 4, Funny

      ...but I'm uncertain if I'll buy one. Maybe I should check with my cat.

      Oh NOW you remember to check the cat. It's been locked in that box for a week now. It's dead.
      or is it?

    2. Re:I want one... by cshark · · Score: 1

      I don't know about your cat, but the voices in my head say it's a keeper.

      --

      This signature has Super Cow Powers

    3. Re:I want one... by eivinsi · · Score: 1

      Yes, when these situations occur, we should always ask ourselves: WWSCD? (What Would Schrödinger's Cat Do?)

    4. Re:I want one... by rubycodez · · Score: 1

      I sell a low cost replacement for this 128 qubit computer, it is 128 boxes for cats. Cats not included, check your local newspaper for "free to a good home" listing in the Pets section. The only worry is beating the python owners to there free food source.

    5. Re:I want one... by rubycodez · · Score: 2

      he's in a superposition of happy and sad states within the living state, but in the dead state he doesn't give a shit.

  2. So, how long has the NSA had one? by pestie · · Score: 3, Interesting

    So, can this thing crack all non-quantum encryption, then? I seem to remember reading about how that would only require 32 qubits or so. And whether it can or can't, if commercial offerings have come this far, how long has the NSA had a version that can crack all encryption?

    1. Re:So, how long has the NSA had one? by jd · · Score: 2

      No, since you can't crack non-quantum one-time pad encryption without the encryption pad.

      --
      It's a small world and it smells funny; I'd buy another if it wasn't for the money; Take back what I paid (SoM)
    2. Re:So, how long has the NSA had one? by stevelinton · · Score: 4, Informative

      An Adiabatic Quantum Computer is quite a different beast from a quantum computer in the usual sense, and even if it can solve the same class of problems in polynomial time (not at all obvious at this stage) it isn't at all clear that 1 qubit in this machine does the same work as 1 traditional qubit.

      They are, to be honest, being a little bit naughty calling this a quantum computer at all, although it does compute and has quanta, but so does my phone.

    3. Re:So, how long has the NSA had one? by pestie · · Score: 1

      OK, fair enough - I had forgotten about one-time pads. I really should have specified "all encryption based on multiplying two large primes," since that's the vast majority of commercially-significant encryption. I'm not even sure if there's a theoretical quantum attack on elliptic-curve algorithms or not.

    4. Re:So, how long has the NSA had one? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 2, Informative

      Meh. Quantum computing, even at its *full* potential, is no threat to symmetric encryption. The recommended minimum key size will jump a moderate amount and you'll be all set again. The effect on asymmetric encryption depends on the type. Some could be severely compromised. BUT, seeing as operations are currently exceptionally fast for end users AND that asymmetric encryption is generally only used to *establish* symmetrically-protected channels over insecure networks, they could probably be jumped up by several orders of magnitude themselves without anything really bad happening. And if all else failed on the asymmetric side, an infrastructure for pre-shared keys isn't really all that difficult. It's just that we've never needed on before so it seems strange. But we already trust CA's to play their part in the asymmetric world - why wouldn't we trust them to act as a middle-man for symmetric key distribution?

    5. Re:So, how long has the NSA had one? by Guspaz · · Score: 2

      That's incorrect. They can magically crack encryption based on integer factorization or discrete logarithms. There are potential speedups for other types of encryption. Symmetric ciphers like AES are believed to be safe.

    6. Re:So, how long has the NSA had one? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 3, Informative

      Adiabatic quantum computing != "classic" quantum computing.

      It does NOT runs the Shor algorithm.

      You can use SSL to download your porn safely tonight.

    7. Re:So, how long has the NSA had one? by Adrian+Lopez · · Score: 1

      So, can this thing crack all non-quantum encryption, then? I seem to remember reading about how that would only require 32 qubits or so. And whether it can or can't, if commercial offerings have come this far, how long has the NSA had a version that can crack all encryption?

      I don't know the implications of these computers for modern cryptography, but assuming they can trivially break encryption it means the public will never get their hands on them. Governments and big corporations would have them (it's just people's privacy, after all), but regular people would not (it would put countries and big corporations at risk).

      --
      "In prison you just have to shut your eyes and take it. Here you have to shut your eyes and give it."
    8. Re:So, how long has the NSA had one? by the+linux+geek · · Score: 1

      AES isn't commercially-significant? What about RC4?

    9. Re:So, how long has the NSA had one? by MaskedSlacker · · Score: 3, Interesting

      I really should have specified "all encryption based on multiplying two large primes," since that's the vast majority of commercially-significant encryption

      No it isn't. It's public/private key encryption. Symmetric key ciphers (which are far more significant) rely on a variety of algorithms. The main use of public/private key is for exchanging symmetric keys.

      In short, RSA (and similar) would be useless, but AES (and similar) would remain secure. The real problem would become one of securely exchanging symmetric keys.

    10. Re:So, how long has the NSA had one? by Baseclass · · Score: 1

      Forget ciphering, imagine all the bitcoins you could mine with this thing!

      --
      ^^vv<><>BA
    11. Re:So, how long has the NSA had one? by jd · · Score: 1

      It would be better if you use TLS, though, as it overcomes some of the problems with SSL.

      --
      It's a small world and it smells funny; I'd buy another if it wasn't for the money; Take back what I paid (SoM)
    12. Re:So, how long has the NSA had one? by jd · · Score: 1

      One way you -might- be able to securely exchange keys using an RSA-style algorithm would be to chop the keys up. What I'm thinking is this:

      N proxy servers, of which M receive part of the key using RSA or something similar. The rest get something random, but it's also encrypted using the same method. Each server then transmits what they get to the intended recipient the same way. You'd need some algorithm to generate what combination is the correct one (which then becomes vulnerable to attack itself) and some covert method of exchanging the seed information (less data than a OTP but still a serious problem) or the method is useless.

      For the actual data, you have the data block also split into M fragments, with the N-M remaining proxies getting random data.

      Since you cannot distinguish between a failed decrypt of a valid assemblage of packets and a valid decrypt of an invalid assemblage of packets, the number of possible combinations to try goes up factorially. For a large enough N and a small enough M, it should be possible to keep such a system ahead of quantum computers as it grows faster than exponentially.

      --
      It's a small world and it smells funny; I'd buy another if it wasn't for the money; Take back what I paid (SoM)
    13. Re:So, how long has the NSA had one? by shentino · · Score: 1

      light speedup...heh heh.

    14. Re:So, how long has the NSA had one? by turing_m · · Score: 1

      And whether it can or can't, if commercial offerings have come this far, how long has the NSA had a version that can crack all encryption?

      Why do you presume they don't already have such a thing? (Other than the OTP, of course.)

      --
      If I have seen further it is by stealing the Intellectual Property of giants.
    15. Re:So, how long has the NSA had one? by Zeroko · · Score: 1

      Quantum computers give a square-root speedup to search operations (of which bitcoin mining is one). So all that would happen is that the difficulty would be roughly squared once most miners had sufficiently large & fast quantum computers. Since the square of the difficulty is nowhere near the limit, it would still be safe for a long time.

      But yes, the first person to do it (if they had a powerful enough quantum computer—not the one in the article) would probably get all the blocks for the next few difficulty adjustments (assuming no one else noticed & did the same) pretty quickly.

      Since bitcoin accounts use public-key cryptography, they might not be safe in the long run, though (depending upon which variety they use, which I do not know off hand).

    16. Re:So, how long has the NSA had one? by errandum · · Score: 1

      So, I don't know if I follow you, but... you're proposing security by obscurity? But then you say that is open to attacks itself.

      Also, a man in the middle at the recipient's door, would't it bypass your proxy configuration?

    17. Re:So, how long has the NSA had one? by drolli · · Score: 2

      Disclaimer: i worked on QC, but not for dwave (although one of my former employers had dealing with them):

      dwave does not aim to build a machine to crack codes. They build a machine which can do what can be done using the technology available now.

      The normal ideas about how to make a QC work, even for lets say factoring 128 bit numbers require many more logical qubits than available. The logical qubits should be composed from physical qubits, and for all coding schemes besides some quite new ones the minimum error rate of the phycical qubits needs to 100 times lower than what its normally right now, and even then you need 10s to 1000s of physical qubits PER logical qubit. this means, we need 1000s to 100000s of physical qubits on the chip with error rates of 10^-4 - 10^-3 per operation. Right now most approaches at QC are at 1-10 qubits with .1%-10% error rate.

      What does dwave do? They plainly select the things which their qc should do very clever, and skip everything for which real quantum coherence is required. In some sense they build an analog computer for a certain class of problems. The way in which they construct it uses quantum mechanics to overcome the performance of a comparable purely classical machine.

      However this machine is quite a different QC from the other QCs proposed. It wont provide exponential speedup on breaking codes

    18. Re:So, how long has the NSA had one? by kasperd · · Score: 1

      Symmetric ciphers like AES are believed to be safe.

      Actually, symmetric ciphers would be reduced in security roughly equivalent to halving the number of bits. So AES128 would be reduced to roughly 64 bits of security. That would still take a long time to break, and I am not sure a quantum computer could remain coherent for long enough to do it. And you don't get the same speedup from buying multiple quantum computers to let them work in parallel on the problem as you would with classical algorithms. If you were to run four in parallel you would reduce the keyspace you have to search from 128 to 126, that means the time time each quantum computer takes is equivalent to brute forcing 63 bits. In other words four quantum computers in parallel will only be twice as fast as one working on the problem on its own.

      In other words AES128 would become easier to brute force, but it still looks like it is not completely feasible yet. AES192 and AES256 are known to have weaknesses, that could potentially make them easier to break on a classical computer than AES128, but I have no idea if you can take advantage of those weaknesses using a quantum computer. If they really managed to make a 128 bit quantum computer work, I think it is time to standardize a block cipher with 256 bit block sizes and 256 bit keys.

      I would expect asymmetric encryption to remain secure for now since it generally uses keys much larger than would fit in these 128 bits. Is there any way a quantum computer can be used to break a key that you can't even fit in the computer?

      --

      Do you care about the security of your wireless mouse?
    19. Re:So, how long has the NSA had one? by jd · · Score: 1

      No, I'm proposing that the network topology can essentially add bits to an encryption key when you're already at the upper limit of what the algorithm itself can take without harming security. If the problem of decryption can be made exponentially harder for each node added, then one node equals some fixed number of bits (probably 1). If you can make the problem increase in severity faster than that, then every node added adds more bits to the key than the last.

      And that's the key question. If you can only do exponential growth at the very best, and quantum computers can beat you now, then quantum computers will always keep pace. It's only when you get into the hyperexponential territory that you can guarantee, flat-out, that you can make RSA-type problems worse than can be solved by quantum computers.

      It's not really security through obscurity, since it isn't the algorithms that are secret, it's the seed information (which is just a different kind of shared key and shared keys aren't considered as security through obscurity).

      A mitm would need to have N private keys (one to decrypt each proxy, since each uses a different key pair to talk to the recipient). But how to identify the keys? The problem with brute-forcing a key is that you've got to know what the message's general form has to be versus what a failed decode looks like. With a one-time pad, all messages of the maximum length or less are equally possible and you can't tell which one is the real one. In order to make RSA act like a one-time pad, you have to have a way to make it impossible to distinguish a correct key from an incorrect key.

      How to do this? Well, I'm leaning heavily on the so-called Byzantine General's Problem. In short, I'm treating each channel as a node in the BGP that is acting on behalf of the attacker by carrying information to them and then making the majority of those channels "traitors". The practical upshot is that the attacker can't be guaranteed able to identify real keys when false messages might yield apparently real keys and real messages (since they're compressed) might not.

      The idea is to swamp the qc with too many possibilities, too many avenues to go down. If you can't swamp with key length, drown in options.

      --
      It's a small world and it smells funny; I'd buy another if it wasn't for the money; Take back what I paid (SoM)
    20. Re:So, how long has the NSA had one? by jd · · Score: 1

      Oh, and yes, to answer the other question, it does. Every component in a crypto system can be attacked, so having a sifter/sieve algorithm plus N proxies adds N+2 components that are potential targets for attack. Since the proxies decrypt and re-encrypt, if the proxies are broken then the plaintext is readable. If the sieve or sifter are broken, the combinatorial explosion is of no significance since the attacker will look only at the channels of interest.

      --
      It's a small world and it smells funny; I'd buy another if it wasn't for the money; Take back what I paid (SoM)
    21. Re:So, how long has the NSA had one? by Hadlock · · Score: 1

      The tin foil hat store is that way -->

      Quantum add-on cards will be commercially available in 5-8 years for your desktop. Quantum desktops are probably 10-12 years out.

      --
      moox. for a new generation.
    22. Re:So, how long has the NSA had one? by VortexCortex · · Score: 1

      So, what you're saying is that them calling this computer a "quantum computer" is a bit like calling my vintage LED wrist-watch an "atomic clock" -- since, technically, it does tell time using atoms, but not in the way you would normally think of a "real" atomic clock.

    23. Re:So, how long has the NSA had one? by angel'o'sphere · · Score: 1

      As "quantum computeres" are not programmed in the normal way with floating point or fixed point variables and for loops and if/else constructs you will need an new algorithm and way to model it and a way to represent the data for every encryption method you want to crack.
      In other words: if we two exchange some PGP encrypted messages, you need to figure how to represent them in the cubits and how to tackle the encryption. There still lots of work to do ;D

      angel'o'sphere

      --
      Cost free eBook I read (by iBook/Kobo/Amazon/ObookO/Gutenberg etc.): "The Green Odyssey" by Philip Jose Farmer.
    24. Re:So, how long has the NSA had one? by angel'o'sphere · · Score: 1

      The idea is interesting but the only thing that makes this hard to crack is the fact that multiple users interact simultaneously. The proxy has to envelop the packages and encrypt them again, though.

      That means 2 packages coming from A go via the proxy to D. And 2 packages from B go via the proxy to D. An attacker does not really know which of the 4 packets came from A and wich from B.

      However the attacker knows each "valid" package has a "sequence" number somewhere, that will open a possible attack vector.

      angel'o'sphere
      P.S. there are email anonymizing services that work like you propose

      --
      Cost free eBook I read (by iBook/Kobo/Amazon/ObookO/Gutenberg etc.): "The Green Odyssey" by Philip Jose Farmer.
    25. Re:So, how long has the NSA had one? by Adrian+Lopez · · Score: 1

      Do you honestly believe the government would ever allow the public to purchase computers that easily break public-key encryption? Supercomputers are already classified as munitions by the US government. Tighter restrictions on quantum computers are not at all unreasonable, especially if it turns out they may be used to break public-key encryption schemes.

      --
      "In prison you just have to shut your eyes and take it. Here you have to shut your eyes and give it."
    26. Re:So, how long has the NSA had one? by wisdom_brewing · · Score: 1

      640 qubits ought to be enough for anybody

      --
      I am very sucseptible to "let's have another drink"
  3. Did some wiki-browsing... by SuricouRaven · · Score: 1

    Sounds like hell to program. You start by finding a complex hamiltonian with a ground state describing the solution to your problem, and it gets more math-filled from there. If you want to solve a problem with a quantum computer, you're going to need a quantum physicist to tell it what to do.

    1. Re:Did some wiki-browsing... by jd · · Score: 2

      So it's like fuzzy logic, only they got tired of having muppets run the IT department?

      --
      It's a small world and it smells funny; I'd buy another if it wasn't for the money; Take back what I paid (SoM)
    2. Re:Did some wiki-browsing... by stevelinton · · Score: 3, Insightful

      A traditional digital computer is pretty hellish to program too if you take away all the props -- you have to find a set of bit values for the memory such this immense consrtructrion of hundreds of millions of gates, clocks, latches, etc. will evolve to give your answer in a reasonably ti,me.

    3. Re:Did some wiki-browsing... by ThunderBird89 · · Score: 1

      You start by finding a complex hamiltonian with a ground state describing the solution to your problem

      I'm not a math whiz, but to me, this says: "You already know the answer to the problem"...
      How can this device help you, if you already have the solution? Is it used for proving the validity, or similar?

      --
      Hyperbole: I use it liberally!
    4. Re:Did some wiki-browsing... by pushing-robot · · Score: 3, Funny

      The basic idea is to enter "42" and see what happens.

      --
      How can I believe you when you tell me what I don't want to hear?
    5. Re:Did some wiki-browsing... by retchdog · · Score: 5, Informative

      think instead, that solving the hamiltonian is equivalent to (or potentially "harder than") solving the original problem, so that you can translate the original problem into a hamiltonian problem. it doesn't mean that you know the answer of either, but you do know that the solution of the hamiltonian will match up to a solution of the original problem. this is the spirit of it: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Reduction_(complexity)

      very, very roughly, think of it like rewriting java, for example, as c. you may not know what the particular code actually DOES in an overall sense, or what it will output, but you can nevertheless rewrite it sort of mechanically (like a compiler would) if you know both languages. furthermore, it's feasible that translating the code is easier than devising the algorithm from scratch. this is basically a reduction. if you can "easily" rewrite any java code as c code, that means java is "reducible" to c. the theory of computation essentially deals with reductions, not of code, but of entire problem classes, which is where P, NP and all that come from.

      --
      "They were pure niggers." – Noam Chomsky
    6. Re:Did some wiki-browsing... by stevelinton · · Score: 1

      You start by finding a complex hamiltonian with a ground state describing the solution to your problem

      I'm not a math whiz, but to me, this says: "You already know the answer to the problem"...

      No. You can think of this as posing the question in a very specific way -- a little constructing a wire frame so that soap films on it
      naturally form the shape of the best surface for some purpose.

      The open question is what questions can in fact be posed this way?

    7. Re:Did some wiki-browsing... by MaskedSlacker · · Score: 1

      I'm not a math whiz, but to me, this says: "You already know the answer to the problem"...

      Only because you've never taken a physics class past the 100 level.

      Lots of applied problems involve you already knowing the Hamiltonian and needing to find the ground-state solution. The process would be awkward for solving arbitrary problems, but for physical simulations it's pretty streamlined (much more so than writing a DE solver in C to solve the same problem).

    8. Re:Did some wiki-browsing... by youn · · Score: 1

      and make sure you watch for highway signs at the local intergalactic precinct headquarters :)

      --
      Never antropomorphize computers, they do not like that :p
    9. Re:Did some wiki-browsing... by Ken_g6 · · Score: 1

      Me too, and I notice two confusingly similar things:

      1. Hamiltonian
      2. Hamiltonian path

      While you can blame the same guy for both of them, I don't think they're otherwise related.

      --
      (T>t && O(n)--) == sqrt(666)
    10. Re:Did some wiki-browsing... by sxeraverx · · Score: 1

      You know one answer to your problem. There are others. The state you put the system into describes the solution to your problem, You let the system evolve in time, and, assuming you don't add any energy (which would destroy your computation), the system will always describe *a* solution to your problem, but not necessarily the solution that you started out with.

    11. Re:Did some wiki-browsing... by maxwell+demon · · Score: 1

      If knowing the Hamiltonian would mean knowing the ground state of that Hamiltonian, things like protein folding would be a non-problem: There we definitively know the Hamiltonian (it's just a bunch of electrically charged particles with spin, after all).

      --
      The Tao of math: The numbers you can count are not the real numbers.
    12. Re:Did some wiki-browsing... by Vasheron · · Score: 1

      Does finding the ground state of a Hamiltonian mean computing it's spectrum and finding the eigenvector corresponding to the smallest eigenvalue, or is it more complicated than that?

    13. Re:Did some wiki-browsing... by sjames · · Score: 1

      If I understand correctly (I may not), you know what you want the end result to look like, and what you start with, but the problem you're solving is what values take you from the starting condition to that desired result.

      In a grossly simplified analogy, I know I want 5x+2 to equal 12. Now I need to know what x causes that to happen.

    14. Re:Did some wiki-browsing... by retchdog · · Score: 1

      well, there are quantum algorithms for TSP. :-P

      apart from that, no, they are not directly related.

      --
      "They were pure niggers." – Noam Chomsky
  4. Wiki by squidflakes · · Score: 3, Insightful

    I attempted to get a basic understand of quantum computing from Wikipedia, and maybe find out how a quibit measured up to a traditional bit, and what adibatic meant.

    Whelp...

    I will never make fun of another old person who is unable to grasp the concepts of computing and computer interface that I use every day.

    1. Re:Wiki by dougmc · · Score: 1

      Absolutely right. This stuff is totally alien. ... it's so totally alien that my BS alarms go off when I hear people talking about it. I've read lots of stuff talking about how quantum computers will work, how they'll change everything, etc. -- but they sound like science fiction. And yet here's a commercial version for sale. It just doesn't ring true with me.

    2. Re:Wiki by MightyMartian · · Score: 1

      You do realize that a failure to understand something is not, rationally, reason to outright reject it.

      --
      The world's burning. Moped Jesus spotted on I50. Details at 11.
    3. Re:Wiki by Burnhard · · Score: 1

      I sympathise with the guy. I just read the article about adiabatic quantum computation and didn't understand what the hell it was going on about. I've been an SD for ten years. If these things take off, I'm very definitely out of a job.

    4. Re:Wiki by biryokumaru · · Score: 1

      I seem to recall that in the infancy of traditional computation, a similar level of sophistication was seen as the standard barrier to entry. Give quantum computing a few decades and any 12 year old kid will be able to whip up some quantum php and call themselves a quantum hacker.

      --
      When you're afraid to download music illegally in your own home, then the terrorists have won!
    5. Re:Wiki by retchdog · · Score: 3, Insightful

      the knowledge will be modularized and commercialized fairly quickly. in the 50s and 60s linear algebra was really hard because it hadn't been parsed out into an easy form - the useful stuff was all tied up with operator theory and the sort of understanding that geniuses have. fast-forward to now, and computing a matrix svd is a fairly standard task (even if you don't really have what a mathematician would call 'understanding').

      similarly, quantum programming will most likely condense into a hierarchy of professional modules and life will go on. the structure of IT and computer engineering is almost totally is socioeconomic phenomenon and not a technical one...

      --
      "They were pure niggers." – Noam Chomsky
    6. Re:Wiki by MightyMartian · · Score: 1

      I have a feeling it's going to be long time before we even have to worry about it. It will be specialized computational devices for a long time, then maybe some sort of new supercomputers. But it will be like IPv4 and IPv6, yes, the new quantum computers will be there, but you'll still be using dull ol' ordinary ones to talk to them.

      That is until the quantum computers develop consciousness and wipe out all humans in favor of androids with Arnold Schwarzenegger's c.1984 physique.

      --
      The world's burning. Moped Jesus spotted on I50. Details at 11.
    7. Re:Wiki by MaskedSlacker · · Score: 1

      Tell that to Texas wrt evolution.

    8. Re:Wiki by MightyMartian · · Score: 1

      There are those who see their ignorance as a failing, and then there are those who see it as virtue. The religionist nuts in Texas are in the latter category.

      --
      The world's burning. Moped Jesus spotted on I50. Details at 11.
    9. Re:Wiki by RightSaidFred99 · · Score: 1

      No, the reason to outright reject them is they're complete nonsense. When they can prove something by actually doing it I'll listen, until then it's just sci-fi voodoo physics bullshit.

    10. Re:Wiki by dougmc · · Score: 1

      You do realize that a failure to understand something is not, rationally, reason to outright reject it.

      I didn't outright reject it.

      But it still sounds like science fiction.

    11. Re:Wiki by maxwell+demon · · Score: 1

      I think a better analogy would be moving a glass of water to another place. If you do it quickly, the water will slosh a lot. However, if you move it slowly enough, the water will remain calm.

      --
      The Tao of math: The numbers you can count are not the real numbers.
    12. Re:Wiki by sjames · · Score: 1

      It is not necessarily a reason to reject it, but you'll have to consider the source. Nine times out of ten, if you don't understand a sales and marketing guy's explanation of why something is better, it's because it's a crock.

    13. Re:Wiki by lennier · · Score: 1

      I didn't outright reject it.

      But it still sounds like science fiction.

      That's basically what Einstein and Shroedinger said too when they heard about quantum mechanics. So you're in good company.

      --
      You are not a brain: http://books.google.com/books?id=2oV61CeDx-YC
  5. Hold the freaking phone by Dyinobal · · Score: 1

    Hold the freaking phone. Last I heard, quantum computing was still in it's infancy and people had a hard time reading even 8 qbits or what ever. I don't remember reading about any fully functional quantum computers until just now. Is this just a well kept secret or has we finally entered the era of the quantum computer (at least for large organizations ala the mainframes of old).

    1. Re:Hold the freaking phone by blueg3 · · Score: 3, Interesting

      Adiabatic quantum computing is somewhat different from "regular" quantum computing. Also, places like Slashdot don't get every minor update to the state of the art. Might have something to do with all the people who say, "wake me up when there's a commercially-available version of this." Well, here's your commercially-available version of this.

    2. Re:Hold the freaking phone by sconeu · · Score: 1

      Also, places like Slashdot don't get every minor update to the state of the art

      Yeah, but a jump from 4 or so qubits to 128 is a quantum leap (pardon the pun), not a minor update.

      --
      General Relativity: Space-time tells matter where to go; Matter tells space-time what shape to be.
    3. Re:Hold the freaking phone by Guspaz · · Score: 1

      My understanding is that d-wave's product isn't a general-purpose quantum turing machine, and that the applications are rather specific (optimization problems). It's not a general-purpose quantum computer.

    4. Re:Hold the freaking phone by TheDauthi · · Score: 1

      These are marketing qubits.

    5. Re:Hold the freaking phone by MaskedSlacker · · Score: 1

      t a jump from 4 or so qubits to 128 is a quantum leap (pardon the pun)

      Great, first people forget what irony is and now puns? Using a word to mean what it means is NOT a pun.

    6. Re:Hold the freaking phone by osu-neko · · Score: 1

      ... but a jump from 4 or so qubits to 128 is a quantum leap ...

      Sorry, but a jump from 4 or so qubits to 128 is a very large leap, not an incredibly tiny one like you just said.

      --
      "Convictions are more dangerous enemies of truth than lies."
    7. Re:Hold the freaking phone by quickOnTheUptake · · Score: 1

      no no no, it was quantum insofar as it didn't pass continuously through the intervening numbers

      --
      Mod points: Guaranteed to remove your sense of humor.
      Side effects may include gullibility and temporary retardation
    8. Re:Hold the freaking phone by blueg3 · · Score: 1

      Well, it wasn't a jump. They've built quantum computers of different types in progressively larger sizes. Just, none of the intervening numbers rated as terribly interesting, apparently. (The four-qbit case was interesting because it was the first quantum device that could in any sense be considered a "computer".)

    9. Re:Hold the freaking phone by WaffleMonster · · Score: 1

      Sorry, but a jump from 4 or so qubits to 128 is a very large leap, not an incredibly tiny one like you just said

      Sorry but it is actually an incredibly tiny leap. If you read their processor architecture document you would see there are only 8 entangled qbits.

      It is a parallel architecture with 16 cells each with 8 qbits = 128qbits. You don't get anywhere near exponential n^qbit scaling out of a crapological quantum computer. The performance I assume is something like 2^8*16... where * any practical number is totally insignificant compared to the expontential term. If they had 128 entangled qbits this would be many orders of magnitude better than what anyone has ever been able to produce in the lab let alone a useful commercial product.

    10. Re:Hold the freaking phone by Tacvek · · Score: 1

      Honestly though, the term "quantum leap" when used metaphorically should not be concerned with the size of the jump, but rather the discontinuity in the transition. Going from 4 or so qubits directly to 128 without having 32 or 64 bit machines would qualify.

      --
      Stylish sheet to fix many problems in Slashdot's D3: https://gist.github.com/801524
    11. Re:Hold the freaking phone by WaffleMonster · · Score: 1

      Honestly though, the term "quantum leap" when used metaphorically should not be concerned with the size of the jump, but rather the discontinuity in the transition. Going from 4 or so qubits directly to 128 without having 32 or 64 bit machines would qualify

      Unlike normal computers it matters signficantly how "bits" are arranged in a quantum system... The exponential speedup unique to quantum computation in their configuration applies only to 8 qbits. They could scale to 10 billion qbits and their machine would be a billion times faster..terrific until you consider some quantity times a billion is inconsequential compared to some number to the power of a billion. If the former kind of scaling is all you need then normal computers are cheaper and do not require an ethernal 1ms "cool down" time between computations.

    12. Re:Hold the freaking phone by lennier · · Score: 1

      Great, first people forget what irony is and now puns? Using a word to mean what it means is NOT a pun.

      Well, it's only a literal quantum leap if you can't measure either the position or momentum of the intervening development prototypes.

      Or if Doctor Sam Beckett is involved.

      --
      You are not a brain: http://books.google.com/books?id=2oV61CeDx-YC
  6. Re:Grammar by jd · · Score: 4, Informative

    Spellcheckers don't usually help with grammar.

    --
    It's a small world and it smells funny; I'd buy another if it wasn't for the money; Take back what I paid (SoM)
  7. iQubit by earls · · Score: 1

    I guess I am just have to wait for the Apple Quantum Computer User Experience.

    1. Re:iQubit by Jeremi · · Score: 4, Funny

      I guess I am just have to wait for the Apple Quantum Computer User Experience

      Me too -- in particular I'm looking forward to the quantum MWI version of FaceTime, which connects you to various alternate-universe versions of yourself, so you can compare notes and see who made the better decisions.

      --


      I don't care if it's 90,000 hectares. That lake was not my doing.
    2. Re:iQubit by benjamindees · · Score: 1

      Choose your own adventure.

      --
      "I assumed blithely that there were no elves out there in the darkness"
    3. Re:iQubit by kmoser · · Score: 1

      Just download it from the QuApp Store.

  8. Bad Translation by sprior · · Score: 4, Funny

    I found the D-Wave white papers very hard to understand, but I'm sure it's because of a poor translation from the original Vulcan to (sortof) English.

    1. Re:Bad Translation by game+kid · · Score: 1

      It was actually translated from Yiddish, but Google messed it up due to D-Wave's abuse of their API.

      --
      You can hold down the "B" button for continuous firing.
  9. Re:My Feelings by wagonlips · · Score: 4, Funny

    I'm simultaneously for and against this.

    Schrödinger? Is that you?

  10. Star Trek??!! by killfixx · · Score: 1

    I feel like a second-grader learning calculus. When I learned calculus, I was in 9th grade . My 7th grade son is already learning statistics and discrete functions. I was born 30 years too soon. I took AP Physics! Where was my Ising model, Hamiltonion operator, or Eigenvalues? Why must I suffer for being born too soon?

    --
    "Helping to keep you two steps ahead of the Thought Police!"
  11. Re:My Feelings by ThunderBird89 · · Score: 2

    meow

    --
    Hyperbole: I use it liberally!
  12. Re:My Feelings by spire3661 · · Score: 1

    Money = force

    I would also like to add that it is the first COMMERCIAL model. Researches do have research grade designs and models.

    --
    Good-bye
  13. But... by IonSwitz · · Score: 1

    ..does it run Quake?

  14. 1 qbit by aahpandasrun · · Score: 1

    How much is a 1 qbit quantum computer? The possibilities are endless!

  15. Maybe it did, maybe it didn't by davidwr · · Score: 1

    Maybe "Lockheed Martin Purchased First Commercial Quantum Computer."

    Maybe it didn't.

    Until the invoice is observed it's both at the same time.

    --
    Knowledge is how to play a game, intelligence is how to win, wisdom is knowing what game to play.
  16. Re:Grammar by creat3d · · Score: 1

    When you feel the need to post because of a missing ' maybe you need some time off from the computer, or simply refrain from posting said concern...

    --
    Grammar nazis are to this community what excrements are to gold.
  17. Wrong question by wurp · · Score: 1

    The real question is "Does the D-Wave 'quantum computer' do anything useful at all?"

    See Scott Aaronson's opinions on the topic: http://blogs.forbes.com/alexknapp/2011/05/24/q-and-a-with-prof-scott-aaronson-on-d-waves-quantum-computer/

    Aaronson is a brilliant quantum algorithm complexity professor for MIT. You can read his blog at http://www.scottaaronson.com/

    1. Re:Wrong question by RightSaidFred99 · · Score: 1

      You don't have to be a brilliant quantum algorithm complexity professor to know the whole thing is bullshit snake oil, the cold fusion of our time. Wake me up when a "quantum computer" (what a bullshit sci-fi name) can do anything faster than a conventional computer. Oh, wait. You won't be able to because I will have been dead for 300 years.

  18. Re:My Feelings by Dahamma · · Score: 1

    Yeah, except throughout the history of the supercomputer the primary use has been calculating nuclear bomb yields...

  19. Re:Grammar by mangu · · Score: 1

    reports of it's first sale to Lockheed Martin

    Does it have spellcheck?

    Any way is perfectly correct, in both spelling and grammar:

    reports of it's first sale to Lockheed Martin

    In this case it means the reports say it is the first sale to Lockheed Martin

    reports of its first sale to Lockheed Martin

    Here we have the possessive "its" meaning the first sale of that computer was to Lockheed Martin

  20. Re:It goes to the Accounting Department by transfatfree · · Score: 1

    what money?..

  21. Re:Grammar by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 1

    If all you can focus on is a grammatical error, maybe you should question your relevance to the human race and what you bring to the table.

  22. Re:It goes to the Accounting Department by badboy_tw2002 · · Score: 1

    He meant the Chinese government.

  23. What will lockheed do with it? by molo · · Score: 1

    Anyone know what Lockheed's plans are for this system? Complex fluid dynamics? Something else?

    The press release only says ".. applied to some of Lockheed Martin's most challenging computation problems."

    -molo

    --
    Using your sig line to advertise for friends is lame.
    1. Re:What will lockheed do with it? by Jeremi · · Score: 1

      Anyone know what Lockheed's plans are for this system? Complex fluid dynamics? Something else?

      It will be used for solving difficult budget problems: in particular, it will optimize the padding-out of this year's expenditures to match the funds allocated, so that next year's budget doesn't get reduced. (/cynic)

      --


      I don't care if it's 90,000 hectares. That lake was not my doing.
    2. Re:What will lockheed do with it? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 1

      Lockheed will use this to develop more advanced weapon systems to prop up the "Free Market" that American businesses need to remain competitive in the world.

    3. Re:What will lockheed do with it? by hrimhari · · Score: 1

      I'm sorry, I don't have mod points, only these: ++++++++++++

      --
      http://dilbert.com/2010-12-13
  24. lame by Hazel+Bergeron · · Score: 1

    Like the IEEE says, it's bullshit in the sense that it's not quantum in the sense usually understood and it's no more effective than a traditional computer. What is more, as with all snake-oil, it has not allowed peer review.

    It would be interesting to see how the money flows from the citizen-taxpayer via the government through Lockheed into D-Wave and finally back to the people in government who set up the purchase.

    1. Re:lame by barlevg · · Score: 1
      I think calling it "snake oil" is going a step too far, but I'm sure Lockheed is buying it mainly for the bragging rights.

      Think of it as a big, big toy. I'm sure there's a team of Lockheed scientists who are going to have a BLAST seeing what this puppy can do, and I'll bet that they find that, for some arbitrarily specific problem, it's insanely useful, but for everything else...

      The other thing to keep in mind is that I'm sure the first commercially available digital computers weren't particularly more useful, but it's an important step.

    2. Re:lame by Algan · · Score: 1

      The other thing to keep in mind is that I'm sure the first commercially available digital computers weren't particularly more useful, but it's an important step.

      IIRC, ENIAC was used to compute the trajectory of artillery shells. The following ones were heavily involved in the design of nuclear weapons.

      --
      If con is the opposite of pro, is Congress the opposite of progress?
    3. Re:lame by Hazel+Bergeron · · Score: 1

      Yeah, but ENIAC was't misleadingly described as being more than it was, and it was clear what its benefits were over traditional methods of computation.

    4. Re:lame by barlevg · · Score: 1

      IIRC, ENIAC was used to compute the trajectory of artillery shells. The following ones were heavily involved in the design of nuclear weapons.

      Question: what came before "electric computers" like ENIAC? Were difference engines ever that prevalent? Because, it's my understanding that electric computers were able to use the algorithms, etc. designed for difference engines. So ENIAC wouldn't really be the first computer the same way this is the first quantum computer. The better comparison would be to Babbage's analytical engines.

    5. Re:lame by barlevg · · Score: 1
      What were "traditional methods of computation?"

      Weren't they this?

    6. Re:lame by FrangoAssado · · Score: 1

      The better comparison would be to Babbage's analytical engines.

      I don't think that would be a fair comparison, either. When Babbage was building his computers, there was no theory of computation, and most of the criticism was from people who doubted that machines could "think". What we today think as "simply" building a machine that makes decisions according to pre-determined instructions, at his time it probably looked like magic to most people. Babbage even wrote in his autobiography:

      On two occasions I have been asked,—"Pray, Mr. Babbage, if you put into the machine wrong figures, will the right answers come out?" ... I am not able rightly to apprehend the kind of confusion of ideas that could provoke such a question.

      The current objections to D-Wave are very different. Everyone has a pretty good idea of how an adiabatic quantum computer is supposed to work. Most of the criticism is coming from people who actually believe it is possible in principle. The discussion and the objections are about whether the D-Wave machine is actually working as the way we think an adiabatic quantum computer should work.

  25. Re:My Feelings by electrosoccertux · · Score: 1

    I'm simultaneously for and against this.

    Schrödinger? Is that you?

    I'd rather not know.

  26. Re:Grammar by pjt33 · · Score: 1

    Punctuation isn't grammar.

  27. I have a friend ... by wisnoskij · · Score: 1

    Who knows a little about quantum computers and is quite interested in them. He says that from all he can find out about D-Wave on the internet they seem like a scam (ie they do not actually have any computers, nor is their any evidence they are linked to any of the experts in the field). Will be interested to see what he thinks of this article.

    --
    Troll is not a replacement for I disagree.
  28. Re:My Feelings by MaskedSlacker · · Score: 1

    The whole history of computer development in general has been weapons development (well, to the extent that we date computer development as starting in the code-breaking/nuclear bomb efforts of WWII, rather than with Babbage--although Ada Lovelace's program to compute Bernouli numbers certainly would have had weapons engineering applications).

  29. Re:My Feelings by osu-neko · · Score: 1

    Schrödinger? Is that you?

    If it is, please tell us where you are, but for God's sake don't tell us how fast you're moving!

    --
    "Convictions are more dangerous enemies of truth than lies."
  30. Re:My Feelings by Dahamma · · Score: 1

    As has much of the history of radar/EM broadcasting, aviation, metallurgy, and who knows, probably the wheel :) Nothing like a good war to cause a leap in technology...

  31. This word does not mean what you think it means by gotfork · · Score: 1

    I haven't studied quantum information theory (I dropped Paul Ginsparg's quantum information theory class after a few days because I had too much work this semester), but it's general knowledge among physicists that Dwave has not made anything worth writing home about. Two wide-audience survey articles about this are http://spectrum.ieee.org/computing/hardware/loser-dwave-does-not-quantum-compute from IEEE and http://news.sciencemag.org/sciencenow/2011/05/controversial-computer-is-at-lea.html?ref=hp from the magazine Science

    1. Re:This word does not mean what you think it means by PaulBu · · Score: 1

      Well, except that the first link is almost a year and half old; and the second one is not a peer-reviewed paper published in Science, but an opinion piece; maybe with a bit of sour grapes flavour that D-Wave's actually peer reviewed paper was published in Nature!

      But, hey, they credited me on the PovRay rendering of the actual chip, so it's all cool! And yes, I do have a "conflict of interest" statement to make ("designed the chip", from the link above); but I also do get tired of people waving old IEEE Spectrum opinion piece and saying: "See, all Electronic Engineers agree that there is nothing to see, move along!" ;)

      Speaking for myself though,

      Paul B.

    2. Re:This word does not mean what you think it means by gotfork · · Score: 1

      I pulled up the IEEE bit since it's written for a very general audience, but Oliver's comment on this paper doesn't sound any more positive that the previous ones: "To be clear, this system was not used to perform any computational algorithm." ( http://dx.doi.org/10.1038/473164a ). The paper is a good first step, but doesn't come anywhere near to proving the claims that the company has made. It is also way less exciting that things that other groups have done, without all the hype, http://arxiv.org/abs/1101.5654 being the most recent example. It's a good illustration through (PoV-ray, wut wut).

    3. Re:This word does not mean what you think it means by PaulBu · · Score: 1

      See, we can have a reasonable and polite conversation supported by references, right?

      Agreed, that is the just the first step, and stay tuned for more! But also, look at the dates of submission and publication of the Nature paper:
      Received 30 June 2010; Accepted 15 March 2011; Published online 11 May 2011

      The paper that you cite is cool, agreed -- but note the "a spin qubit" in the title. While a great physics experiment, it was not designed to be part of a structure even in principle capable of performing any non-trivial computation, classically, or otherwise!

      Of course, the goal of D-Wave's Nature paper was to show that quantum effects are there and persist, despite qubits being incredibly long (skinny loop about 700 um on the side, 1.4 mm round-trip -- still boggles my mind that they behave like a single spin!) and surrounded by all kinds of on-chip "stuff" necessary to control them. If one wants to look at the actual "computation" performed by the same (or very similar, we have a bunch of them running) chip, one needs to look here: http://arxiv.org/abs/1004.1628

      Thanks for kind words about my little rendering (you have not seen it in full resolution! ;) )!

      Paul B.

  32. Re:Can someone tell me... by Ash-Fox · · Score: 1

    Can someone tell me a specific example of something this can do quicker than a classical computer?

    Quantum algorithms that solve problems in fewer steps and in turn, faster than a "classical computer". With enough qubits, it would be capable of brute forcing some of the most complicated encryption systems out there in minuscule amounts of time in comparison.

    --
    Change is certain; progress is not obligatory.
  33. Re:My Feelings by Dynetrekk · · Score: 1

    Must be Zombie Schrödinger...

  34. Obviously by Fantastic+Lad · · Score: 1

    It sure seems to be a Quantum Computer to me.

    It either works or it doesn't.

    Nobody seems to know for sure one way or the other, not the CEO who is still running tests to see, and not their detractors who can only speak in percentage certainties.

    Prediction: When the question collapses into one state or the other, it will either turn out to be just an exotic classical computer, or it won't work at all. Because if it turned out to work as intended, then it would effectively prove that particles are both waves and particles and that we know what they are doing, and AFAIK that's against the rules.

    But until then, the whole question is in a super-position.

    You're welcome.

    1. Re:Obviously by thsths · · Score: 1

      > It sure seems to be a Quantum Computer to me.

      > It either works or it doesn't.

      Those are two different questions, hm? As far as I can see nobody seems to seriously propose that this thing is actually useful. The discussion is about whether it is just a very bad half digital half analog computer with a lot of noise, or whether quantum effects have to be used to explain its behaviour. That behaviour would be a correlation of the noise beyond what classical theory predicts.

      So even if you can, after long hours of observation, observe a tiny quantum effect in this device, does that mean it is useful? No, most like you just have noise that is slightly different from the classical model.

  35. Greed is Good by drdubious · · Score: 1

    The people behind this company seem very clever, although their web site reads like something from the Onion. Lockheed giving them $10 million makes me think that the Military Industrial Complex has way too much money to play with. Back in the 1980's, there was a company that claimed to get gold out of beach sand. I expect that D-Wave will be using Cold Fusion to power their 128 gigaqubit "quantum computers" when they finally go public with their initial stock offering. Entangling gold and hot air will never go out of style as long as Wall Street has anything to say about it.

  36. This is not a quantum computer by thisisauniqueid · · Score: 1

    D-Wave has been beating this drum for years -- and/or the press has been conveying the message incorrectly. What they have produced is *not* a quantum computer. They have only proved for symmetric satisfiability problems that it runs in polynomial time, not in the general case -- and I would be interested to see one real-world problem it can actually solve (I doubt they have actually built what is described in the original computing by adiabatic evolution paper from 2000).

  37. Re:Grammar by rubycodez · · Score: 1

    Those whom obsess over tiny punctuation and spelling errors can be useful and productive to other humans in many roles: cut up for chum; test subjects for exposure limits to radiation, carcinogens, biohazards; ballast, low-cost substitute for ballistic gelatin, biofuel, beneficial mulch for fungus farms.....the list goes on and on.

  38. Re:Grammar by swalve · · Score: 1

    But choosing the wrong word i's.

  39. nt by shentino · · Score: 1

    But does it both run and not run linux?

    1. Re:nt by lennier · · Score: 1

      But does it both run and not run linux?

      I can do that right now by installing Ubuntu Unity.

      --
      You are not a brain: http://books.google.com/books?id=2oV61CeDx-YC