Slashdot Mirror
Study Doubts Quantum Computer Speed
Alain Williams writes "The BBC reports that a new academic study has raised doubts about the performance of a commercial quantum computer in certain circumstances. In some tests devised by a team of researchers, the commercial quantum computer has performed no faster than a standard desktop machine. 'The study has been submitted to a journal, but has not yet completed the peer review process to verify the findings. And D-Wave told BBC News the tests set by the scientists were not the kinds of problems where quantum computers offered any advantage over classical types.'"
It has to be faster, right?
A qbit computer already matches conventional computers in speed? I'm impressed!
it may be faster , slower or both
Prototype engine fails to win Formula One race.
Of course... The performance doesn't line up with the claims, so the testing methodology is flawed.
Maybe you could take a moment to enlighten us so that we can put to bed the debate as to whether your product actually is a quantum computer.
Thirty four characters live here.
the tests set by the scientists were not the kinds of problems where quantum computers offered any advantage over classical types.
So... why is this here?
Since I haven't read the actual paper, I'll give the researchers the benefit of the doubt. But the BBC reporting is terrible. What I got from the story is that a study has demonstrated that this Quantum computer isn't better at everything. Well, duh! Everyone who has even very casually followed Quantum computing knows that they are a new class of computing which can solve a limited set of problems very quickly. I'm really not much wiser after reading this story.
the D-Wave, once we wade through the marketing schtick and look at the technical specifications is a quantum annealer. its not designed to solve a calculation but rather to put us close...it does this from the global minimum of a given objective function over a given set of candidate solutions (candidate states), by a process using quantum fluctuations.
im not trolling over semantics though! annealers are extremely important to solving very difficult mathematic equations, and in many examples quantum annealing has been vastly superior to traditional computational methods. We should do machines like the D-Wave better justice though. Compare it instead to a traditional annealer.
Good people go to bed earlier.
I had to chuckle at the thought that the D Wave is nothing more than a desktop hidden inside a large case full of magic quantum gizmos. Kinda like those free energy machines with hidden motors and batteries inside them. The article even reads like a free energy hoax:
"The comparison found no evidence D-Wave's $15m (£9.1m) computer was exploiting quantum mechanics to calculate faster than a regular machine."
"And D-Wave told BBC News the tests set by the scientists were not the kinds of problems where quantum computers offered any advantage over classical types."
"Thus, Canada-based D-Wave Systems drew scepticism when, in 2011, they started selling their machines, which appeared to use a non-mainstream method known as adiabatic quantum computing."
But on a more serious note, I would take this supposed quantum computing performance setback with a grain of salt. We haven't even scratched the surface and barely have any real hardware to work with. I would wait until more research and hardware is available before making such bold statements relating to quantum computing performance.
...then why are we reading about it now? Is it really such an important and decisive finding that we can't wait a few months until it at least gains at least that level of credibility?
(no sig)
The commercial quantum computer has performed no faster than a standard desktop machine because the benchmark test was being observed by a team of researchers. Had they not have looked at it, the results would have been different.
.....is that it's a hoax created to draw out chinese spies
And D-Wave told BBC News the tests set by the scientists were not the kinds of problems where quantum computers offered any advantage over classical types
From the abstract:
We illustrate our discussion with data from a randomized benchmark test on a D-Wave Two device with up to 503 qubits.
What is a randomized benchmark test? What is randomized? The algorithm itself? Then I guess that's not a good test.
And was D-Wave not involved in the study?
If Pandora's box is destined to be opened, *I* want to be the one to open it.
"tests set by the scientists were not the kinds of problems where quantum computers offered any advantage over classical types"
My cell phone isn't very good at editing 1080p videos or hosting Exchange 2013 and my toaster isn't good at cooking eggs either. The headline should read "quantum computer not good at calculations they weren't designed to do." What a useless story.
It's long been known that quantum computing offers speed-ups only on certain problems. Thing is, many of those problems are of immense practical import (like factoring large numbers).
Is it the test that is flawed or is the actual program? How do we know they have created the most advantageous program for quantum computing and not simply using some basic program that fails to capture it's potential use?
As soon as you know how fast it is, you have no Idea where it is and lose all the gained time searching for it.
The d-Wave machine supposedly operates under the principles of an adiabatic quantum computer. There is a considerable controversy in the field regarding what machines of that type can and cannot do. But even d-Wave itself does not claim that the machine can solve NP-complete problems in polynomial type, see also the Wikipedia article. So this article is actually not news but olds. And it is obvious that the author has not a iota of understanding of the distinction of a fully fledged quantum computer and the d-Wave machine.
Why are we reading this? Couldn't we simply wait for peer review?
People need to realize that this is not the government waste/quantum computing expose it is made out to be in this article. Whenever the supercomputing community comes out with a new resource, we test it and find the best algorithms for that resource. We have a long history of different algorithms working better for different resources. Take for instance, the transition from the Cray vector processors, to commodity Intel processors, then back to vector processors with the Earth Simulator, then back to Intel, then Cell processors, then CPUs. All of these required significant tweaking of our algorithms, which can take 5-10 years for the real work-horse codes to accomplish. In this case, the low hanging fruit lies in encryption, but other algorithms will find a niche in the quantum computing sector.
Why put trust into peer review when we're doing such a poor job of it now?
http://www.economist.com/news/leaders/21588069-scientific-research-has-changed-world-now-it-needs-change-itself-how-science-goes-wrong
Just another day in Paradise
As I understand it, it's fairly common knowledge that a quantum computer wouldn't be that much faster than a normal computer in most cases. As I've heard it, there's only a few applications where a quantum computer would be significantly faster, the main one being the math required to crack RSA and other asymmetric encryption algorithms.
It could probably mine bitcoins stupidly fast too.
Admit nothing. Deny Everything. Make Counter-accusations.
> under the principles of an adiabatic quantum computer
That's not true -- most of the nerds involved have type II diabetes.
(-1: Post disagrees with my already-settled worldview) is not a valid mod option.
They could have saved themselves the trouble and just read the Wikipedia article. This has been known since at least 2007, according to one of the quotes there.
Sheesh, evil *and* a jerk. -- Jade
Call us when there is a _single_ problem that D-Wave can solve faster than a computer costing 1/2 as much. In fact, 1/5th as much. Until then it's just sci-fi.
I call bullshit!!
they obviously altered the performance of the computers by measuring their performance.
The Google Quantum AI lab puts this news into perspective and I put my positive spin on it here.
Having talked with one of the co-authors of the paper, he actually came away impressed at how far D-Wave has come in ten years. Although not yet far enough that I'd win my bet with him, that the D-Wave two could beat classical computing across the board.
So in short, yes, the BBC's reporting on quantum computing is atrocious. Not the first time either.
Just publish it. If it's decent work, the media will know. /sarcasm
Even calling the D-wave a computer is a bit of a stretch. Its an experiment on a computer chip.
Is the thing actually Turing complete (in the practical sense)?
If Pandora's box is destined to be opened, *I* want to be the one to open it.
I don't mind the study authors trying to get a bead on this issue.
What I do mind is anyone, ANYONE thinking that actionable information can be achieved at this stage. Quantum computing is so new that, compared to classical computing, it's like we're in the late 1940's. Everything is still secret, the hardware engineers think that programming is "a minor problem", there is essentially no professional press or user groups, toolkits are years in the future yet, and the first public consciousness, still 5 years away, is that of a "giant brain".
In fact I'm in the business and I still don't know what D-Wave can actually supply to a paying customer. And I've read some of the available reports. What is it, really, that they offer? Some kind of a computational subsystem? Completely independent but primitive quantum computers? Hardware only? Some bundled development tools and sample code? Services? What?
It is not.
If quantum computing is suppose to be the next big thing, it can only be successful if it makes money, right? Bigger, faster, better.