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D-Wave Previews Quantum Computing Platform With Over 5,000 Qubits (venturebeat.com)

Posted by msmash on from the pushing-the-limits dept.

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.

31 of 74 comments (clear)

  1. Re:Cryptic "quantum" horseshit by jellomizer · · Score: 1

    But observing its actions will change its results.

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  2. Do these machines actually do anything useful? by sheramil · · Score: 1

    the article wasn't very clear on this.

    1. Re:Do these machines actually do anything useful? by jythie · · Score: 4, Funny

      They generate hype and sweet sweet VC dollars?

      Unless things have improved, their systems are still slower and more expensive than solving the same problem on general digital computers, and probably still slower than using analog computers.

    2. Re:Do these machines actually do anything useful? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 3, Interesting

      the article wasn't very clear on this.

      Yes, they are quantum annealers that are capable of doing discreet optimization problems.

      Protein folding, travelling salesman, quantum chemistry modeling, and artificial neural networks can all benefit from them.

      They will not run Shor's algorithm and crack encryption but the class of problems they can tackle is still has very real world applications.

    3. Re:Do these machines actually do anything useful? by garcia · · Score: 1

      It's been tested to work thousands of times better than traditional CPUs at simulated annealing operations; however, research leveraging DWave offerings have been slow to come out. You can reach an article where researchers used DWave technology to conduct their experiments. In addition, there are numerous published papers leveraging DWave tech including application in ML and optimization tasks (traffic).

      But, healthy skepticism should setup a box around our confidence in any published research until it's verified--preferably on non-DWave systems, something which is pretty damn difficult today.

    4. Re:Do these machines actually do anything useful? by Kelly+Boothby · · Score: 3, Interesting

      They will not run Shor's algorithm and crack encryption but the class of problems they can tackle is still has very real world applications.

      In fact, the factoring problem has a particularly nice algorithm in the adiabatic regime. It's just a multiplication circuit, where you clamp the outputs and "run it backwards" to deduce the inputs. It's not Shor's algorithm, but D-Wave is way ahead of the (gate-model quantum) competition in terms of factoring.

    5. Re:Do these machines actually do anything useful? by gweihir · · Score: 1

      It separates rich gullible people from their money. No other useful application.

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    6. Re:Do these machines actually do anything useful? by jythie · · Score: 1

      Yeah.. that isn't saying as much as you might think. The CIA, like DARPA, provides seed money to all sorts of unlikely or sketchy projects, only with even less oversight and more 'depends who you know' corruption. CIA money going to them only really means that they have friends in common via the old revolving door.

  3. As if a thousand qubits cried out by goombah99 · · Score: 1

    and were annealed. It's an annealer. not exactly a quantum computer. But real QM computers have noise problems and waste almost all their bits on error correction methods. I wonder if there is any limit in which annealing and error correction strike some sort of equivalance or are two limit cases of something? I don't understand it well enough but I'm always trying to get more insight into the limits on the D-wave.

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    1. Re:As if a thousand qubits cried out by jking_ca · · Score: 3, Informative

      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.

  4. So it's like your boss? by goombah99 · · Score: 1

    Dilbert needs to explore the quantum boss: I'm observing you, and results don't seem to be improving.

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    1. Re:So it's like your boss? by ClickOnThis · · Score: 1

      Did you say Dilbert?

      [See the first two strips on the linked page.]

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  5. Numbers seem strange... by Actually,+I+do+RTFA · · Score: 1

    The article's numbers are weird. It talks about going from 6 qbits to 15 qbits, and then jumping to 2000 qbits and an expected 5000 qbits. Did I miss a major advance? I thought each qbit grew the difficulty of creation by an order of magnitude, and 15-20 was considered the upper limit for "cost is no object" with current tech.

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    1. Re:Numbers seem strange... by Mordaximus · · Score: 1

      If I'm not completely off, I believe there are 5000 qubits, and each qubit can be connected to 15 other qubits.

      Disclaimer, I'm not a rocket doctor.

    2. Re:Numbers seem strange... by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 3, Informative

      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.

    3. Re:Numbers seem strange... by jking_ca · · Score: 2

      The number of qubits is increasing from 2000 to 5000. The connectivity is also increasing from 6 couplings per qubit to 15 couplings per qubit. The connectivity is important because it allows more complex problems to be solved. For example, more qubits means you can solve problems that have more variables. But you can't solve any interesting problems unless the variables interact with each other. More connectivity means you can solve problems with more interactions between the variables.

    4. Re:Numbers seem strange... by ceoyoyo · · Score: 1

      DWave's quantum computers aren't like the general purpose ones people usually talk about because all the qubits aren't connected to all the other ones. It's more like a bunch of little quantum processing units all networked together.

      That limits the type of problems it can solve, but it does make it a lot easier to scale up.

    5. Re:Numbers seem strange... by Kelly+Boothby · · Score: 1

      I'm a quantum architect, not a rocket doctor, but you've got this. ;)

    6. Re:Numbers seem strange... by gweihir · · Score: 1

      That limits the type of problems it can solve, but it does make it a lot easier to scale up.

      It also makes it a whole lot slower than the best classical algorithms for the same problems and a whole lot more expensive. This device has no applications where it would make sense to use it.

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    7. Re:Numbers seem strange... by gweihir · · Score: 1

      The 5000 qbits are not entangled or rather only entangled in very small groups. This makes the whole thing a demented stunt.

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    8. Re:Numbers seem strange... by Actually,+I+do+RTFA · · Score: 1

      At 15 couplings per qbit, does that mean there's a giant interconnected network in the 5000 qbit computer, or that there are 333 parallel 15 qbit computers?

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    9. Re: Numbers seem strange... by ceoyoyo · · Score: 1

      Thatâ(TM)s true of all existing quantum computers. The DWave machine is special purpose, but a sufficiently scaled up version can be faster at some things than a conventional computer.

    10. Re: Numbers seem strange... by gweihir · · Score: 1

      Because of the way it works, it can actually not scale up. It can do the same-size problem in parallel more time, but a classical computer can do the same. So no advantage at all, not even in the future. The only possible advantage would be cost, but as the D-Wave is much more complicated and has much lower deployment numbers than classical computers, it would probably take several decades of intense and expensive optimization to get its cost for the same performance down past the classical solution, if it can be done at all. And then it would take additional decades for this to amortize.

      Now, if the computing problem solved were a major part of the world-wide overall computing load, this could make sense. But it is not.

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  6. When this is turned on... by rnturn · · Score: 5, Funny

    ... the stars will all start going out.

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    1. Re:When this is turned on... by ClickOnThis · · Score: 4, Informative

      ... the stars will all start going out.

      ...why?

      This is why.

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      If it weren't for deadlines, nothing would be late.
  7. Re:Expand all othello games then by jouassou · · Score: 5, Interesting

    As far as I know, D-Wave doesn't make any universal quantum computers, but only quantum annealers. That means that they can solve some optimization problems on their machine, but they can't actually run e.g. Shor's integer factorization algorithm. As far as I'm aware, the current record for universal quantum computers is Google's Bristlecone, which has 72 qubits with a single-qubit error rate of ~0.1%. For comparison, most quantum error correction require an error rate of below 0.001% or so, and running Shor's algorithm to break 2048-bit RSA encryption might require up to 10,000 qubits. It'll probably be a while until they'll find those primes for you.

  8. The problems that D-Wave solves by OneHundredAndTen · · Score: 2

    What are the problems that D-Wave has so far managed to solve, that a conventional computer cannot solve just as efficiently and at a fraction of the cost?

  9. They do not have a QC by gweihir · · Score: 1

    They have a "Quantum Annealer" and it happens to be much slower than the best algorithms for classical computers. All that keeps them alive is clueless morons with too much money and a desperate desire to be at the forefron of things.

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  10. Re:qubits by gweihir · · Score: 1

    If they were entangled, yes. But they are not. As such, this is basically a very expensive paperweight.

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  11. Re:I know it's not really a quantum-computer... by gweihir · · Score: 1

    No. The only case where this thing is faster than a classical computer is when the classical computer emulates the d-wave. This of course makes zero sense. The best classical algorithms for the same thing the d-wave can do are much, much faster on much, much cheaper hardware. The whole thing is driven by fantasy and some people with no clue and too much money. It device has no practical application value.

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  12. Re:Expand all othello games then by gweihir · · Score: 1

    It cannot play even a much simplified version. This is not a general computer and not really a quantum computer either.

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