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Are We Entering a "Golden Age of Quantum Computing Research"?
Lashdots writes: Last month, an elite team at IBM Research announced an advance in quantum computing: it had built a four-qubit square lattice of superconducting qubits, roughly one-quarter-inch square, that was capable of detecting and measuring the two types of quantum computing errors (bit-flip and phase-flip). Previously, it was only possible to address one type of quantum error or the other. The next step is to correct quantum errors.
In a blog post, Mark Ritter, who oversees scientists and engineers at IBM's T.J. Watson Research Laboratory, wrote: "I believe we're entering what will come to be seen as the golden age of quantum computing research." His team, he said, is "on the forefront of efforts to create the first true quantum computer." But what would that mean, and what other big next steps are there?
In a blog post, Mark Ritter, who oversees scientists and engineers at IBM's T.J. Watson Research Laboratory, wrote: "I believe we're entering what will come to be seen as the golden age of quantum computing research." His team, he said, is "on the forefront of efforts to create the first true quantum computer." But what would that mean, and what other big next steps are there?
how does that even compute into being a golden age?
is it settled now even if that one companys "quantum computer" can actually solve anything faster than a simulation about what it does for cheaper?
world was created 5 seconds before this post as it is.
Betteridge's law of headlines
IMHO, QC is a dirty money-grab / scam. Don't waste our time until you've got at least 64 entangled qbits.
No?
+1. Stupid headline and sensationalism.
I suppose we are entering the golden age of flying cars as well.
Oh since you have refuted QM why don't you just publish your findings an claim your Nobel Prize instead of spewing rants on Slashdot?
They're analogue computers they can solve the thing they're setup to solve faster than a digital computer.
So for example, if you set up a system that follows an elliptical curve as a voltage (as opposed to calculating the values of the curve in the floating point unit of a digital computer), then it can crack elliptical curve cryptography a lot faster.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Analog_computer
The buzzword these days seems to be to call these 'quantum' if the analogue aspect is the phase of a photon, but that's just marketing nonsense.
What will the programming languages be like?
perhaps i = 1 to something
maybe print i
next i
?
Yes and no
Aberrations have appeared in my destiny prognostication engine!
No, nothing is settled. It may still well turn out that computations do not scale to a relevant number of q-bits and it may be that doing computations takes extremely long and has an increase for more complex computations that eliminates all advantages. In fact, looking at alternative computing mechanisms, such as Josephson gates, it seems quite likely that the hype will keep for another 10 years or so before the community finally admits defeat. One reason could be that complexity of doing computations or number of repetitions needed increase the effort exponentially in the number of bits employs. And unlike classical computers, you cannot divide problems for QCs into smaller ones, you always need enough q-bits to get the whole problem in in one go.
Also, for many problems, QCs are simply unsuitable or do not help much. For example for breaking ciphers in a known plaintext scenario, a working QC reduced the number of bits to half. With that AES-256 is still completely secure and AES-128 may be secure if each of the O(2^64) non-elementary computation steps needed takes long. Even Shor's algorithm for factorization needs O(n^3) quantum gates for n bits and as it is probabilistic, and hence a number of repetitions in addition that also grows in n. It is quite possible to increase n into regions where no known QC can solve the problem. (Currently, that border is n = 5 or so and has been for a long, long time).
Most ACs are not even worth the keystrokes to insult them. Be generically insulted by this and ignored otherwise.
We're in the Golden Age of slashdot right now!
Or is that the Golden Years?
Ask me again after you've opened the box and agreed to the shrink wrap license on the D-Wave you just bought...
The Golden Age of research on any cutting edge technology is that point at which deep pockets take it seriously enough to spend serious money and give researches comfortable timelines while at the same time have limited expectations of tangible and useful results.
Betterige's law (aka Hinchliffe's Rule) is neither true, nor false.
Since 1995, it cannot be evaluated, see https://newtonexcelbach.wordpr...
Gödel and Heisenberg would have been proud!
The predictions at that time was that computers would be entirely built of Josephson-circuitry and be super-fast as a consequence. They just needed to solve a few problems, like the supercooling and integration and the like. Turns out these were prohibitive for the question of basing computers mostly on JJs. That is not to say these things are not useful or do not have applications. They are just not suitable to revolutionize computing, as they are special-purpose devices.
Quantum technology is in quite a few things as well these days, such as in SQUIDs and quantum-dot LEDs and even FLASH memory (erasing is by tunnel effect). That is fine. But when we are talking about Quantum Computing, that means replacing CPU and memory with all-quantum tech that is all entangled together (well, enough memory to do to actual computations, so maybe more like a very large register-set CPU or the like) and that is a whole different kind of thing.
There are a lot more of these "UFOs" in Computer Science, that turn up from time to time but never deliver on their grand claims: holographic memory, alternate gates, alternate logics (MLC and TLC in FLASH being the only viable example), optical on-chip interconnect, AI in many forms, many of the promises of public clouds, mem-resistors, etc. I am merely pointing out the pattern that can be observed here to put the credibility-level of the claims made into perspective.
Most ACs are not even worth the keystrokes to insult them. Be generically insulted by this and ignored otherwise.