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D-Wave's Quantum Computer Successfully Models a Quantum System (arstechnica.com)
An anonymous reader shares an excerpt from Ars Technica: D-Wave's hardware has always occupied a unique space on the computing landscape. It's a general-purpose computer that relies on quantum mechanical effects to perform calculations. And, while other quantum-computer makers have struggled to put more than a few dozen qubits together, D-Wave's systems have already scaled to more than 2,000 addressable bits. But the D-Wave systems don't perform calculations in the same way and, despite all those bits, haven't clearly demonstrated performance that can outpace even traditional computing hardware. But D-Wave has come out with a research paper in Science that suggests that the system can do interesting things even in its current state. The company's researchers have set it loose modeling a quantum system that closely resembles the bits used in the hardware itself, allowing them to examine quantum phase transitions. While this still isn't cutting-edge performance, it does allow researchers full control over the physical parameters of a relevant quantum system as it undergoes phase changes.
From what I read in the summary, I get that it is normal hardware, with some quantum stuff simulated. It doesn't do a lot, but it does let the researchers run simulations of......itself. Is that right?
recursion?
4wdloop
At least I did not have to read the usual trite quantum computing explanation again. You know the one, “quantum bits can be 1 and 0 at the same time,” which explains something and noth ng at the same time if you ask me.
Call me when Newegg has them on sale for $299.
Otherwise, I just don't give a fuck.
I heard you like quantums, so we modeled quantums in your quantum computer so you can model quantums with your quantums.
Come on, I couldn't be the only one thinking it...
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I don't keep up on this. Last Slashdot story, half the comments were extremely skeptical that the entire thing was a fraud. Then Google and other big customers bought in which means they're doing something right. But then it's suggested that a small investment in D-Wave is an insurance policy just in case they're on to something big.
Doom?
, will I be a Top or a Bottom? I'm already considered a bit Strange, and without any Charm. But those are the Ups and Downs of walking around with a Hadron all the time.
Seriously. This thing does not have global entanglement. That makes it useless as a QC.
Most ACs are not even worth the keystrokes to insult them. Be generically insulted by this and ignored otherwise.
I'm a scientist in the quantum information technology area. It always annoys me to see the marketing machine of D-Wave trumpeting their number of qubits as the ultimate achievement in quantum computing. I could point you to Scott Aaronson's great blog, but the bottom line is: THIS IS NOT A GENERAL-PURPOSE COMPUTER, EVEN LESS OF A GENERAL-PURPOSE QUANTUM COMPUTER.
You see, the power of a QC is not just in the number of qubits. But even assuming this were the case, qubits come in different "quality". If you want to run Shor's algorithm, or in general all those computational tasks that highlight the alleged superiority of a QC, you need qubits of very high "quality" - in terms of entanglement, noise, programmability, etc. The current approach of companies such as Google, IBM, Rigetti, is to try to get a bunch of qubits as "pure" as possible. You can already run Shor's algorithm on IBM's Q cloud quantum computers for example, however these machines are limited to very few qubits - I think the current record is Google's Bristlecone at 72 qubits, and it's not publicly peer-reviewed yet, the only one which has been academically scrutinized is the IBM's 20 qubits one I think. The core reason is the following: building a QC with, say, 20 qubits does not mean sticking together two QC with 10 qubits each. The engineering difficulty is not "double" as much as building a QC with 10 qubits: it grows exponentially.
D-Wave's approach is totally different. They just stick together a bunch of very "dirty" qubits (completely useless for quantum computing in general), but optimize their machines to solve faster certain problems. The specific problems they solve is basically "simulate a D-Wave machine" (!!!) Kidding apart, these machines only solve certain VERY SPECIFIC physical simulation problems. However, these problems are so specific that there is currently no proof whatsoever that D-Wave's machines offer a speedup over classical algorithms at all!
So, bottom line: no, D-Wave's machines are not going to crack your RSA key anytime soon.
The D-Wave is an "adiabatic quantum computer".
See: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/...
This is quite different from quantum Turing machines /universal quantum computers which is usually referred to as quantum computers.
Basically the D-Wave allows to search for a ground state in a system where the quantum states interact in a well controlled way.
The quantum states might represent logical bits, the interactions logical clauses (e.g. A & B = 1) and one might seek a state in which as many clauses as possible are satisfied. Such problems are known as SAT (satisfiability) problems.
Another application could be, that the quantum states represent e.g. (valence) electrons in a crystal lattice (preferably a metal), which interact with their neighbors. The ground state of such a system might give insights to magnetic properties of (abstract models of) materials (when the interaction makes electron spins flip in a coherent manner that might cause ferromagnetism). Determining such ground states with classical computing can quickly lead to time- and memory demanding problems even for few quantum states.
"By the way if anyone here is in advertising or marketing... kill yourself." -- Bill Hicks
Currently, D-Wave machines do nothing a classical computer cannot do at least as fast. The only relevant proof, is proof that these things actually outperform classical computers. Which they don't. Not yet at least.
In their current state, they're just really expensive gadgets to scratch someone's really expensive geek-itch. And they're pretty power-hungry as well.
Sounds like researchers are not really making anything real or useful, they are just throwing up a lot of dust and using a lot of smoke and mirrors and made up buzzwords and doublespeak and acting like it’s something cool. Nevermind that they don’t have any useful examples of it doing something cool, it just does “something” and we’ve reached and passed the singularity and you’re not smart enough to understand our transcendent computer. The king has no clothes on.
"D-Wave has come out with a research paper in Science that suggests that the system can do interesting things even in its current state"
When they proclaim IN A RESEARCH PAPER that they could do great things. It's like being in a bar when the drunks start telling you how they could have been so great/rich/famous...
^ jacks off creimer with tweezers.
it's like 5th grade all over again.