D-Wave Announces Commercially Available Quantum Computer 133
New submitter peetm writes "Computing company D-Wave has announced they're selling a quantum computing system commercially, which they're calling the D-Wave One. The D-Wave system comes equipped with a 128-qubit processor designed to perform discrete optimization operations. A qubit is the basic unit of quantum information – analogous to a bit in conventional computing. For a broader understanding of how qubits work, check out Ars Technica's excellent guide."
Quantum annealing (Score:5, Informative)
This has the same central problem as before (Score:5, Informative)
Re:Quantum annealing (Score:5, Informative)
As far as I'm aware the 128 "qubits" aren't entangled at all, which means it is useless for any of the quantum algorithms that one generally thinks of (Shor's algorithm for factoring, for example). It simply has 128 separate "qubits" that are queried individually, and is, essentially an augmented classical computer that gains a few minor advantages in some very specific algorithms (i.e. the quantum annealing algorithm) due to this qubit querying, but is otherwise indistinguishable from a really expensive classical computer for any other purpose.
The Author speaks (and cringes a bit) (Score:5, Informative)
Re:Quantum annealing (Score:5, Informative)