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Google and NASA Snap Up D-Wave Quantum Computer
ananyo writes "D-Wave, the small company that sells the world's only commercial quantum computer, has just bagged an impressive new customer: a collaboration between Google, NASA and the non-profit Universities Space Research Association. The three organizations have joined forces to install a D-Wave Two, the computer company's latest model, in a facility launched by the collaboration — the Quantum Artificial Intelligence Lab at NASA's Ames Research Center. The lab will explore areas such as machine learning — useful for functions such as language translation, image searches and voice-command recognition. The Google-led collaboration is only the second customer to buy computer from D-Wave — Lockheed Martin was the first."
Or Not. I can't tell.
We can solve those traveling salesman problems that have been plaguing our society for hundreds of years!
The D-Wave 1 was approximately $10 million:
https://dwave.wordpress.com/2011/11/01/siri/
From a recent Financial Post article profiling D-Wave:
If computers could learn, grow and evolve the same way humans can, the world would be a much better place, Dr. Geordie Rose argues. The co-founder and chief technology officer of Burnaby, B.C.-based quantum computing firm D-Wave Systems Inc. contends that humanity would gain unprecedented access to education, health care and information if only his company’s technology were more widely adopted. Having sold its first quantum computing system to Lockheed Martin Corp. for approximately $10-million, the doctor of theoretical physics spoke to Financial Post technology reporter Jameson Berkow about his plan to change the world. The following is an edited transcription of their conversation.
I'd be curious what computer language they use to program this thing.
Objective Quark.
Or C±±
On your screen before you even thought of searching for it!
Quantum porn - you can't tell both what position they are in and how fast they are going at the same time
IEEE Spectrum apologised for that article:
http://spectrum.ieee.org/podcast/computing/hardware/big-win-for-the-losers-at-dwave
It's a quantum computer all right, just not a universal quantum computer. But it should still show quantum speedups for discrete optimization problems.
http://blogs.nature.com/news/2013/04/further-proof-for-controversial-quantum-computer.html
So far, tests have been very promising:
http://www.newscientist.com/article/mg21829173.500-commercial-quantum-computer-leaves-pc-in-the-dust.html
If it continues to speed up like this, there are some very exciting times ahead of us!
http://www.flickr.com/photos/jurvetson/8054771535/ (Rose's Law, the quantum computer equivalent of Moore's Law)
I'd be curious what computer language they use to program this thing.
Objective Quark.
Or C±±
Or subjective c
It's not a quantum computer, it's a quantum annealer. It can't run general purpose quantum computer algorithms like Shor's Algorithm but it can find the optimum values for a specific class of problems, the same ones that are sometimes solved with software simulations of quantum annealing appropriately enough. The latest research shows that it outperforms a regular computer by several orders of magnitude on those problems, but it remains to be seen if it performs better than an ASIC chip designed for the task.
Except what they obviously intend to use it for - large scale decryption of SSL traffic so the data can be mined by Google (for profit) and the Government (to oppress).
I for one welcome our new quantum computer overlords.
Don't hold your breath, I predict that there is a world market for maybe five such computers.
Ezekiel 23:20
Python, actually. The quantum part is treated like an oracle.
Except what they obviously intend to use it for - large scale decryption of SSL traffic so the data can be mined by Google (for profit) and the Government (to oppress).
If that's their intent, they'll be sorely disappointed, since D-Wave's machine has only 512 qubits (where as all new SSL certificates are at least 1024 bits). More importantly, the machine is not a general purpose quantum computer and can't run Shor's algorithm.
Besides, NSA is already able to break 1024 bit RSA using conventional computing (not to mention the possibility of much cheaper side channel attacks). See e.g. Schneier.
If we are optimistic, it may be possible to factor a 1024-bit RSA modulus [before 2020] by means of an academic effort on [a] limited scale.
- Kleinjung et al., 2010, my emphasis
The same paper gives an estimated difficulty of 2 million CPU years for factoring 1024 bit RSA. Sure, that's about $500 million on Amazon EC2, but the NSA have dedicated data centers, dedicated ASICs, smarter algorithms, and money to burn. Realistically, breaking 1024 bit RSA may be as cheap as $50,000 a pop to the NSA... and remember, they only have to break it once per HTTPS certificate, not once per connection.
(As for Google, they're already have your email and knows every page you visit that contains a YouTube video, a +1 button, or Google Analytics... Why would they waste time breaking RSA when the sidechannel attacks are cheap and plentiful?)
Python.
http://www.dwavesys.com/en/dev-tutorial-getting-started.html
I'm a dreamer, the world is my playpen. But hey, I'm a serious person, I can't dream all the time.
SILENCE, if it was a real Quantum computer then every program is already written in every language known and to be yet invented.
I haven't thought of anything clever to put here, but then again most of you haven't either.