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The CIA and Jeff Bezos Bet $30 Million On Quantum Computing Company
An anonymous reader writes "The CIA's investment fund, In-Q-Tel, and Amazon founder Jeff Bezos have invested $30 million in a Canadian company that claims to build quantum computers, reports Technology Review in a detailed story on why that startup, D-Wave, appears to be attracting serious interest after years of skepticism from experts. A spokesman for In-Q-Tel says that intelligence agencies 'have many complex problems that tax classical computing architecture,' a feeling apparently strong enough to justify a bet on a radically different, and largely unproven, approach to computing."
I've seen this before, and I think it's to do with 0 comments. Although I seem to remember seeing 0 comment stories without red headers.
Because they ran out of blue.
Just a quick FYI: for those of you still assuming that D-Wave is a bunch of snake-oil salesman (like I did for a long time), take a look at this bit from Ars Technica. Basically what they've built is not a genuine quantum computer, but a sort of "quantum optimizer" that delivers speedups for some kinds of problems. Their crime might be that they just use too much marketing hyperbole, instead of being complete frauds.
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You want to get you eyes checked
That's like me betting a nickle. Strike that. A plug nickle.
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In fact, I have one of their systems right here, still sealed in its box. On the box is a sticker, "this box contains a quantum computer. Once the box is opened and you look inside, it may either be there, or not be there".
Oh wait, that scheme doesn't work anymore...
ok. had to. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Fm_-sW4Vktw
if they will or will not deliver.
You know, the government has absolutely no business running an investment fund, especially a "secret" one where it looks like there's no meaningful oversight. This is we the people's money, and we the people have no interest in being the angel to some sleazy fly-by-night foreign start-up who just wants to suck at Uncle Sam's ever-so-generous teat.
I'm willing to bet it's the fact that in the harsh african ecosystem, it pays to be bigger and more aggressive than smart.
If I'm still developing when quantum computing becomes ubiquitous, how will programming work? Will booleans suddenly have 8 states? True, False, KindaTrue, MostlyFalse, Truthiness, TotallyBogus, WayCool, Cowabunga?
I thought it was for subscription freebies, but none of you people have subscriptions.
Unless you're just hiding them.
Keep on knockin'
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I think its rather obvious that it's not secret... since we're talking about it. I'd rather the CIA be investing in new technologies and improving society. At least they didn't spend $30 million starting a war somewhere.
Sure wish Bezos would spend a nickle to make Amazon search actually work.
"National Security is the chief cause of national insecurity." - Celine's First Law
You're correct. Sometimes the system messes up, though, and displays them anyway.
It lets you test every factor of a large composite number at once and pull out the answer probabilistically, thus allowing you to (e.g.) break AES in polynomial time.
That's when all kinds of shit will hit the fan.
Right now they're not quite big enough to handle a 256-bit key. We're closer to 4 qbits, at present.
No need to wait. I have a quantum computer right here in my pocket. It's called a coin. You want eight possible states? Add three more nodes. It's highly efficient for answering life's toughest questions. And if I don't like the answer I can try again.
You mean you the person. I hardly think you speak on behalf of the population.
If I'm still developing when quantum computing becomes ubiquitous, how will programming work?
By that time, you should be past programming and have reached the management level; the questions at that level are of the nature of: what's the probability for the project to finish by X date, within Y budget and deliver Z?
Questions raise, answers kill. Raise questions to stay alive.
It's a TRAP!!
DWAVE = CIA front.
It was going to be accomplished by the commercial industry eventually, best stay involved.
Last thing the US needs is terrorists with quantum computers that could crack encryption or make cracking their encryption very annoying. This way they can "help" by developing weaknesses / backdoors etc.
The short answer is that the times have changed from back when government-funded applied research was a primary source of startup innovations. The reality is that small companies move faster and are more able to adjust to surprises in an agile manner than the Government. Now the tables have turned and the Government needs mechanisms to find new things because it's certainly not inventing them all in-house.
Speaking as one of the other members of the population, I have a few mixed feelings about the government using public funds for equity buys. Conversely, if that mechanism allows the USG to more rapidly gain access to novel inventions than they have and those inventions optimize the Government's performance, it's a drop in the bucket and probably saving the taxpayers a bundle.
If you find Google Earth useful, thank In-Q-Tel. When the startup that produced that technology was financed, only realtors in California had ever heard of it.
(Yes, I'm a little biased. I have been a part of some public-private partnerships that have performed well.)
By that time, you should be past programming and have reached the management level; the questions at that level are of the nature of: what's the probability for the project to finish by X date, within Y budget and deliver Z?
Lets ask our Quantum Computer ?
Is the CIA once again hoping some expensive technology will actually allow them to finally get something right?
Sure wish Bezos would spend a nickle to make Amazon search actually work.
Is 13 out of 10000 tries good enough?
Wow, they missed the bus on that one! Why not invest in bitcoins instead? lol. Ohhhhh, you might be able to mine bitcoins with a quantum computer. That's tricky, lol.
Btw nobody tell them that although the chip runs on magic (paraphrased), the speed of data in or out depends on the bus speed of the board it's in. So that really limits the ability to use it to its full potential.
It's an investment
You forgot FileNotFound!
No kidding. When they bet a few Billion, we'll know our future robot overlord has achieved a major milestone.
For in politics, as in religion, it is equally absurd to aim at making proselytes by fire and sword. - Publius
they have a different department for starting wars.
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I still can't get over the feeling that public money was spent for private gain, and it just isn't right in my book. If the government's intent had anything to do with getting a monetary return on investment, it would liquidate that fund, use the proceeds to pay down the debt, and let us the people decide how to invest our own money. If, on the other hand, the government's intent is to stimulate certain research, there needs to be a more ethical way to do it than giving away intellectual property monopolies to private parties for research done on the public dime.
The public is taking a lot of risk in these partnerships, and the big gains are staying in private pockets. It smells like baksheesh, and I just don't like it.
Question: What does the Thing That Calls Itself Jeff Bezos actually know about Schrodinger's Equation?
Answer: NOTHIN is a Rats Ass.
No doubt Mr. Bezos performed oral sex with a certain CIA Man ... and as they say ... all is self evident.
X*(Y*2/Z-1) finishing date, but managers typically misread it as X*(Y*2/2-1), which is why deadlines are always set impossibly soon. Just to clarify, X is ten years from any starting date (3650 days). Delivered Z is antecedent penalty; a reciprocal of the sum of all previous & related technologies squared 1/((q1+q2+q3...)^2). That's why it can take millions of dollars to shorten development time by mere days; the fancy equipment budget negates the penalty of the antecedent technologies. Reinventing the wheel is when a budget of under $20 results in a "yesterday" finishing time, which is a symptom of a project delivering last-age tech (stone,bronze,steel,etc.). New tools and science push the next-age, which means gradually eroding the antecedents impact. Because of how many underlying projects led to current ones this-age, there's currently a very heavy price to get anything done quickly.
Better tools and scientific knowledge need to become ubiquitous, or else the cost of pushing technology forward grows ridiculous, it's burden becomes too high and new advancement stagnates.
No, that's not right. The best improvement you can get on AES using a quantum computer and known quantum algorithms is using Grover's algorithm, which effectively makes attacking a 256-bit cipher as easy as a 128-bit cipher (note there are some minor known attacks on AES), but even with that improvement AES-256 is still secure (perhaps AES-128 starts looking a little iffy).
But there is one very important caveat to this discussion: AES is only secure if the keys are secret. Use of AES in the real world often (ex. for SSL or SSH) involves an AES key being agreed upon over a public key encryption system like RSA, and a quantum computer can break RSA in polynomial time (it would need more than 256 qubits, though).
Perhaps this investment is a true test of faith in quantum mechanics. If you are pretty sure the probability that this company will succeed is non-zero, then perhaps in one universe this investment will pay off. Even if in this universe, the investment goes belly up, in another universe, you will be rich. Maybe then you can live vicarously in that knowlege... If you are true believer, that is ;^)
They only have 1 complex problem they're trying to pursue; breaking crypto systems.
Nah, more like "True", "False" and "CowboyNeal".
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They only have 1 complex problem they're trying to pursue; breaking crypto systems.
Right, because they'd never need to solve complex problems such as running facial recognition on several billion faces in real time or developing high-response AI for unmanned craft.
Just because YOU can only think of one use doesn't mean they can't think of others.
Two at least. Their attention-deficit problem is at least as stringent.
Something bad is coming when people are suddenly anxious to tell the truth.
Anyone interested in D-wave owes it to themselves to read up on the many blog posts written byScott Aaronson on the subject. I'll leave it up to the readers to challenge or assert his observations, none-the-less, they are a good read on this subject.
if you program in c, booleans have some 4 billion possible states
The Chief Scientist is only a BS from UCLA? The question is not even whether quantum computing is plausible; it is rather whether it is accessible by D-wave.
I was going to say, you forgot MU, but on reflection i guess Cowabunga covers that.
yes. and apparently a real quantum computer is powerful enough to design a eugenics program complete enough to eradicate genetic scum like yourself
Goes to show you even the CIA and Bezos can be scammed by snake oil salesmen.