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IBM Touts Quantum Computing Breakthrough

Posted by timothy on from the or-they-don't-it's-indeterminate dept.

Lucas123 writes "IBM today claimed to have been able to reduce error rates and retain the integrity of quantum mechanical properties in quantum bits or qubits long enough to perform a gate operation, opening the door to new microfabrication techniques that allow engineers to begin designing a quantum computer. While still a long ways off, the creation of a quantum computer would mean data processing power would be exponentially increased over what is possible with today's silicon-based computing."

3 of 132 comments (clear)

  1. another misleading quantum computing article by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 5, Insightful

    1) Repeated news about being able to perform some operation with a tiny number of qubits do not suggest that it is probably true that a useful quantum computer of practical size can be built;

    2) It wouldn't mean data processing power would be "exponentially increased", but that certain algorithms could be executed asymptotically faster.

    QC remains a second rate branch of mathematics for computer science types who don't want to apply themselves to less glamorous problems in the more mature and challenging fields of classical computing. For engineers, it's still in the nuclear fusion stage: kinda just possible in the right conditions, but under no conditions shown useful.

  2. Re:And people say .... by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 5, Insightful

    The depressing thing is that you will never see anything like this out of Apple. Billions of dollars in reserves and no "Jobs Labs".

  3. Re:And people say .... by Darth+Snowshoe · · Score: 5, Insightful

    THIS, like times a million. NYTimes this weekend had an excellent article on the history of Bell Labs (the laser, the transistor, communications satellites, etc). HP, whatever else you may think of them, supported the pure research lab which brought forth the memristor. IBM can point to things such as this, its various efforts to simulate a brain, and Watson. Google, bless their souls, is pushing for automated driving (this may not sound in the same league, until you realize the consequences for everybody who drives or rides in an auto.)

    Where is the pure research at Apple? Do they think they can get by on just making better UIs, for the rest of forever? Are they at all part of a larger community?