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D-Wave Previews Quantum Computing Platform With Over 5,000 Qubits (venturebeat.com)
An anonymous reader writes: D-Wave Systems, one of the handful firms that is building a quantum computer, today unveiled the roadmap for its 5,000-qubit quantum computer. Components of D-Wave's next-generation quantum computing platform will come to market between now and mid-2020 via ongoing quantum processing unit (QPU) and cloud-delivered software updates. The complete system will be available through cloud access and for on-premise installation in mid-2020.
There are two types of machines called quantum computers. The ones with 6-15 qbits are using special "entangled" logic gates that can in theory solve any problem, but getting a usable circuit is very difficult. D-wave is a quantum annealer, meaning that it is meant to solve a particular kind of optimization problem. It's kind of like putting a bunch of odd shaped items into a box and shaking the box. The random movement will over time cause the items to pack more tightly into the box. Only in this case, the "shaking" is quantum fluctuations.
D-Wave processors are quantum annealers, which is a type of quantum computer. You can think of it as having a reduced instruction set relative to gate-model quantum computers. Quantum annealers _can_ be universal, but D-Wave's aren't yet. They also have noise issues but are far more robust to noise than gate-model quantum computers. Right now D-Wave processors provide a heuristic algorithm (quantum annealing) for an NP-hard optimization (Ising minimization, equivalently, quadratic unconstrained binary optimization (QUBO)). Quantum annealing does, in theory, scale better than classical alternatives like simulated annealing. There has been some evidence of this (https://arxiv.org/abs/1705.07452) and I'm sure more will be coming.
... the stars will all start going out.
...why?
This is why.
If it weren't for deadlines, nothing would be late.