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.'"
DWave don't have to "enlighten us": the statistical tests that distinguish quantum and classical annealing are in the public domain and they've been open about which of those tests they think the machine should pass. The trouble is that it's hard to run those tests cleanly, which is what the study is about:
Here we show how to define and measure quantum speedup in various scenarios, and how to avoid pitfalls that might mask or fake quantum speedup.
No kidding!!! What do you say at this point?
Reviewers often are working in similar spaces too. I had a paper that failed review the first couple times because the reviewer wanted more data on a particular area of the project. It didn't affect the main idea of the paper or in any way directly contribute to our argument. The reviewer needed some charts generated because he was working on a similar project and it would help for him to have some other paper that he could reference to get started/justify his paper. So not only low paid work sometimes low paid work for someone who you didn't even know was your boss :)