D-Wave's 2,000-Qubit Quantum Annealing Computer Now 1,000x Faster Than Previous Generation (tomshardware.com) 119
An anonymous reader quotes a report from Tom's Hardware: D-Wave, a Canadian company developing the first commercial "quantum computer," announced its next-generation quantum annealing computer with 2,000 qubits, which is twice as many as its previous generation had. One highly exciting aspect of quantum computers of all types is that beyond the seemingly Moore's Law-like increase in number of qubits every two years, their performance increases much more than just 2x, unlike with regular microprocessors. This is because qubits can hold a value of 0, 1, or a superposition of the two, making quantum systems able to deal with much more complex information. If D-Wave's 2,000-qubit computer is now 1,000 faster than the previous 1,000-qubit generation (D-Wave 2X), that would mean that, for the things Google tested last year, it should now be 100 billion times faster than a single-core CPU. The new generation also comes with control features, which allows users to modify how D-Wave's quantum system works to better optimize their solutions. These control features include the following capabilities: The ability to tune the rate of annealing of individual qubits to enhance application performance; The ability to sample the state of the quantum computer during the quantum annealing process to power hybrid quantum-classical machine learning algorithms that were not previously possible; The ability to combine quantum processing with classical processing to improve the quality of both optimization and sampling results returned from the system. D-Wave's CEO, Vern Brownell, also said that D-Wave's quantum computers could also be used for machine learning task in ways that wouldn't be possible on classical computers. The company is also training the first generation of programmers to develop applications for D-Wave quantum systems. Last year, Google said that D-Wave's 1,000 qubit computer proved to be 100 million times faster than a classical computer with a single core: "We found that for problem instances involving nearly 1,000 binary variables, quantum annealing significantly outperforms its classical counterpart, simulated annealing. It is more than 10^8 times faster than simulated annealing running on a single core," said Hartmut Neven, Google's Director of Engineering.
ELI5 (Score:3)
What can you actually do with this?
Re:ELI5 (Score:5, Insightful)
Nothing you cannot do much better and much faster on a much cheaper conventional computer.
Re:ELI5 (Score:5, Interesting)
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We are going to eventually have actual quantum computers, and when we do they will be awesome. Right now, it isn't clear that D-Wave's system can be reasonably called a quantum computer, and is even more clear that they aren't useful at all.
I propose we stop all research, commercial and academic, into quantum-computing, until such a time that we have actual, awesome quantum computers :p
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Re:ELI5 (Score:5, Insightful)
First these fucks said d-wave wasnt doing any quantum stuff. Then these fucks said it was slower than conventional hardware. Now these fucks say its still slower than conventional hardware if you use a different algorithms that wont solve the same set of problems...
This is not accurate. The first statement is that it wasn't clear that the D-Wave system was engaging in any quantum computation. That's still not clear. Part of the issue here is that it simply isn't completely clear what one means by quantum computation in this context. For example, your laptop's transistors use quantum mechanics in a critical fashion, but they aren't doing quantum computations. The question has always been twofold a) is non-trivial entanglement going on and b) is that entanglement being used to do processing that cannot be easily simulated on a classical system. Those are both strongly connected to questions of efficiency. Right now, the answer to a seems to be yes (although it took forever for the evidence to actually come out).
Your second two sentences are even more wrong. The fact is that it is slower than cheap conventional hardward if one *uses the best known classical algorithms*. That's being used to solve the same problems, as would be clear, if you read the link I gave.
Your insistence that one must use the "the same algorithms" to benchmark is also incredibly wrong in this context, since one cannot use the same algorithms on both at a fundamental level. D-Wave's system uses a variant of an annealing algorithm and cannot run classical algorithms in any meaningful way. In that context, the classical computers are in this sense essentially emulating an annealing process. If you insist that one must use the same algorithms rather than look actual time for solving problems, then the systems are simply incomparable. Actually looking at cost and time to solve problems makes more sense.
As someone else noted.. Google, NASA, etc must be complete idiots for not bowing to the clearly rational flying goalpost these fucks swing around.
Let's recall for a moment that the primary "fuck" you are talking about is Scott Aaronson who is one of the world's most respected quantum computing experts. He's responsible for many major results including the algebraization barrier http://www.scottaaronson.com/papers/alg.pdf [scottaaronson.com] and the first substantially non-trivial lower bounds on the basic collision problem http://www.scottaaronson.com/papers/collision.pdf [scottaaronson.com] among other work.
But let's for a moment think about what is going on with Google and NASA and consider other explanations that are relevant here. First, both Google and NASA both have major interests in basic research, and there's a valid basic research interest in what D-Wave is pursuing. (I personally consider it unlikely to go anywhere that useful compared to gate-based quantum computing research but that's a judgment call.) Moreover, large corporations and governments like fads: it doesn't take much for some mid-level manager to decide that quantum computing is a shining new thing and realize that the easiest way to jump on the bandwagon is to buy a D-Wave machine.
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Let's recall for a moment that the primary "fuck" you are talking about is Scott Aaronson who is one of the world's most respected quantum computing experts.
Idiots are usually not able to recognize non-idiots, because they are, well, idiots. A simple corollary to the Dunning-Kruger effect. These are the same morons that claim vaccinations cause Autism and perform other stellar failures to recognize reality.
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The joke is on you....
Re:ELI5 (Score:5, Insightful)
Aaaaand, fail. You do not compare the same algorithms if the computing devices have fundamentally different characteristics. For example, you do not compare a single CPU computer and a large cluster using the same algorithm. You compare them using algorithms that deliver the same results, but one gets a classical algorithm and the other gets a parallelized one. That is actually benchmarking 101.
Because if you insist in the same algorithm, you will find that one device has to simulate the other in order to be even able ti run that algorithm. That is not a relevant comparison in any way. May as well compare the speed of an airplane and a bicycle and require the bicycle to fly for that. Stupid.
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Well, true.
Re:ELI5 (Score:5, Insightful)
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Gee, you use lots of foul language. You must be right.
He probably is pissed that people fail to recognize his superior wisdom.
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Why do I give a shit what algorithm is used, if both systems give me the same answer, but the cheaper conventional system does it faster? Is the label "quantum annealing computer" supposed to give me a gold star or something?
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And that is _exactly_ the right question. What matters is what the thing can do in comparison to existing technology. And there the D-Wave fails utterly.
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You want to know what this D-Wave technology represents? A start. They have started moving from the theoretical to practical. The technology will move from specialty implementations to common implementations.
As the technology slowly moves closer to practical individuals, governments, and commercial enterprises will be falling over each other to invest huge sums of money. And if the military get's interested in this technology even more money will be dumped into this technology development. I wonder how acc
Build an electric analogue computer (Score:1)
It's just marketing.
It's not quantum: There is no faster than light entanglement going on in there, and the qubits are not in superimposition state, they're in a state. It's not in superimposition state because it often doesn't get an optimum result. And the mechanism is electrical circuits and has no way to entangle.
What it is is an analogue computer using magnetic fields to solve Annealing problems, (optimizations that don't lend themselves to faster digital algorithms and instead have to be brute forced)
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No. The D-Wave is a stunt, nothing else. It will never have any practical uses. It has no real scientific basis. It is "snake-oil", not much more, but very expensive snake-oil.
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You want to know what this D-Wave technology represents? A start.
Yes and no.
Yes, D-Wave technology represents the first practical step in one possible direction for building practical quantum computers.
No, in that it is an insane hype machine. How many pieces have you seen which claims that D-Wave is working on solving NP-complete problems efficiently, something which pretty much everyone believes quantum computers are incapable of doing? If D-Wave can't live up to the hype, it may ruin quantum computing for everyone, and that would be a bad thing.
My mother (who has spen
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You want to know what this D-Wave technology represents? A start.
Yes, but a start in the wrong direction, if what we want is general-purpose QC.
Quantum annealing is not general-purpose quantum computing. It's nothing like general-purpose quantum computing. Improving it does not get us closer to general-purpose quantum computing.
Shaft-and-cam analog computers can outperform conventional digital computers on certain classes of problems, too. Where's the Slashdot horde telling us we're all idiots for not investing in them?
Ironically, going in the wrong direction is just the
Re:ELI5 (Score:5, Informative)
Re:ELI5 (Score:4, Insightful)
Can you provide links?
Seriously, I (and I suspect many others) have a decent idea of the *concept* of quantum computers, but understanding actual application is... elusive.
Re:ELI5 (Score:5, Informative)
I (and I suspect many others) have a decent idea of the *concept* of quantum computers, but understanding actual application is... elusive.
Just FYI, D-Wave is not a general-purpose quantum computer. It's a specialized device for solving one very specific class of problems [wikipedia.org]; gaining insight into it probably won't help you understand the full capabilities of quantum computers.
I can't explain quantum computers to you in general, because I don't understand them either. I do know one very important application though: using Shor's factorization algorithm [wikipedia.org] to break RSA encryption [wikipedia.org]. You'll hear about it when real quantum computers [wikipedia.org] reach commercial maturity, because a bunch of Slashdot articles will appear about how everyone is in a panic to rush and replace RSA with something else. :-)
Commercial v. Government Actors (Score:5, Interesting)
You'll hear about it when real quantum computers [wikipedia.org] reach commercial maturity, because a bunch of Slashdot articles will appear about how everyone is in a panic to rush and replace RSA with something else. :-)
"commercial maturity" being the key word here, because we should assume that significant portions of major classified intelligence budgets are being thrown at the problem by the US and China, maybe also by a few other players (India? Israel? The UK? Russia?). Like how it's widely believed that differential cryptanalysis was known to the NSA well before it became known to the world, only today encryption is much more prevalent and much more important to anyone doing signals analysis.
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"commercial maturity" being the key word here...
Yes, that phrase was chosen carefully. ;-)
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Probably not the UK, we have no money and prefer to just brown-nose the US to get access to its tech. Israel is probably also not bothering, since it can ask the US for the tech and because most of its opponents aren't making heavy use of crypto.
The US and China though, it's a toss up who gets there first.
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Re:ELI5 (Score:5, Interesting)
Can you provide links?
Here you go. [wikipedia.org]
TL;DR? The basic idea behind a simulated annealing algorithm is that it searches for successively better solutions, but occasionally accepts a "worse" one, so as to reduce the possibility of getting stuck in a local minimum when there is a better minimum nearby (sort of like jumping out of a caldera at the top of a mountain, so that you can reach a a better minimum closer to ground level.) As time goes on, the probability of accepting a worse solution is reduced, according to an "annealing schedule" until finally only better solutions are accepted.
Seriously, I (and I suspect many others) have a decent idea of the *concept* of quantum computers, but understanding actual application is... elusive.
Simulated annealing is not an exclusively quantum-based algorithm. It works quite well on classical computers. But it is a method that would perform very well on a quantum computer.
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TL;DR? The basic idea behind a simulated annealing algorithm is that it searches for successively better solutions, but occasionally accepts a "worse" one, so as to reduce the possibility of getting stuck in a local minimum when there is a better minimum nearby (sort of like jumping out of a caldera at the top of a mountain, so that you can reach a a better minimum closer to ground level.) As time goes on, the probability of accepting a worse solution is reduced, according to an "annealing schedule" until finally only better solutions are accepted.
Not being an expert on either, this sounds a little like fuzzy logic. Am I completely off base?
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Not quite. Compare your current and your different solution. If the different is better, go for it. If it's worse, there's a certain probability that you should go for it anyway. With proper changes in the probability function over iterations, the probability of getting the global optimum approaches. Without this, you're liable to wind up in a local maximum.
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Sounds a lot like Genetic Algorithms. Interesting.
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Sounds a lot like Genetic Algorithms. Interesting.
Yes, they are similar, in some respects. [wikipedia.org]
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Not so much "lots of variables" as complex structure with lots of local minima. Traditional optimisation tends to get trapped in local minima. Simulated annealing maintains a bunch of solutions and adds noise (moves them around randomly) so they don't get "stuck". You then slowly reduce the noise/randomness and hope the solutions settle into the global minima. It has some nice statistical properties about the likelihood of finding a solution vs classical methods. Named for the analogy with annealing me
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What can you actually do with this?
You can write a Hello, World! program that everyone can read in their own language.
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You can write a Hello, World! program that everyone can read in their own language.
Excellent! Being able to broadcast a greeting in all languages and on all channels brings us one step closer to the Star Trek utopia.
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I'm doing that right now. Tune your old analog TV to any channel with static on it, and use the one-time pad for your language to decipher the message!
Re:ELI5 (Score:4, Informative)
What can you actually do with this?
Simulated annealing [wikipedia.org], which is used to solve a huge number of optimization problems. It is very compute intensive, and is often run on GPUs. If the claimed speed up is real, that would be a really big deal.
Re:ELI5 (Score:5, Interesting)
For instance the Extended Compact Genetic Algorithm converges much faster, and dont let its name fool you its not a genetic algorithm as the name Compact Genetic Algorithm is derived not from the technique, but instead the name is derived from the space it searches which is exactly equivalent to a simple genetic algorithm with a crossover probability of 0.5. The Compact Genetic Algorithms is instead an estimation of distribution algorithm, and the Extended version detects and leverages the dependencies between different elements of the solution vector in a theoretically optimal (information theory) way, which gives it an advantage over algorithms that don't (which includes Simulated Annealing, which is why it fell out of favor.)
Annealing is still used for problem sets where there isnt a lot of dependencies within the solution vector.
Some of the d-wave haters have moved onto the argument that the system isnt faster than a conventional one when the conventional one runs a "better" algorithm
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ECGA is a poor performer compared to other methods for function optimisation.
If it was any good it would have appeared often in the best algorithms in competitions like GECCO's regular optimisation competitions.
That's one of the benefits of having good benchmarks and assessment protocols like COCO, GECCO and other competitions - it forces touters and fanbois of one system or another to put up or shut up.
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ECGA is a poor performer compared to other methods for function optimisation.
Yes, now.
Now imagine how poor SA is, given that superior algorithms to it are also considered "poor performers"
Thats why SA fell out of use.
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Some of the d-wave haters have moved onto the argument that the system isnt faster than a conventional one when the conventional one runs a "better" algorithm .. see the big paragraph above. "Better" means searches a different solution space and therefore cannot solve all the same problems.
Do you have any source or evidence for this? In particular, do you have examples of specific problem classes that the D-Wave machines can find the minimums for that where conventional systems cannot? Considering that any annealing system can be done by simulated annealing with minor tweaks on a classical computer if one is patient enough, this seems like a strange claim.
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In particular, do you have examples of specific problem classes that the D-Wave machines can find the minimums for that where conventional systems cannot?
Interesting request. You want an example of a problem class where the d-wave is superior to everything ... why you would want this indicates that you really want to argue a strawman since nobody claimed it was superior to everything. Your request is for evidence that it is superior to everything is just straw.
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Bad scaling? (Score:2)
D-waves systems are inherently statistical. Which means you need many replicas of an experiment to map out the ground state and reliably establish it is the ground state. Doesn't this mean that the more cubits you have the exponentially more replicas you need to run? thus anything short of exponential gains in speed is a step backward in perfromance as you add quibits? or am I wrong.
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D-waves systems are inherently statistical. Which means you need many replicas of an experiment to map out the ground state and reliably establish it is the ground state. Doesn't this mean that the more cubits you have the exponentially more replicas you need to run? thus anything short of exponential gains in speed is a step backward in perfromance as you add quibits? or am I wrong.
They said that the new machine, having 2000 qubits rather than 1000 qubits, is 1000 times faster than the old one. But, you only need 10 more bits for something to have 1024 times the capacity (2^10=1024). So theoretically they should only have had to add 10 more qubits, aka, have 1010 qubits total, for it to be 1000x as capable. But instead they added not just 10 more qubits but 1000 more qubits.
And still completely useless (Score:2, Troll)
Except to separate fools and their money. The one before was a bit faster than a simulation of itself on a slow, conventional computer. This one will still be massively slower than the best algorithm for calculating the same thing on a massively cheaper conventional computer. But many people are idiots, and some idiots have a lot of money, hence I do not doubt they will sell this SCAM-device as well.
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It may be a scam and be laughed upon, but if the technology matures, it will become more and more useful and at one point your view is obsolete.
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It may be a scam and be laughed upon, but if the technology matures, it will become more and more useful and at one point your view is obsolete.
i.e.: If you strike this down now, it will become more powerful than you can possibly imagine.
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Not going to happen here. The scam is far too obvious.
And even if we eventually get working Quantum Computers of relevant size (which is an exceptionally big "if"), they will be far less useful than people assume.
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You seem quite confused.
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I may seem so to you, but clearly you are.
Uh, useless except for breaking RSA (Score:2)
There's no good reason why our web security infrastructure shouldn't immediately begin upgrades to support multiple, extensible and arbitrary methods of key exchange, including but no
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And ECC. Probably not with this generation, but it's entirely possible three letter organizations are close to having a machine that can at least break smaller key sizes. Which in and of itself isn't especially worrying, except that the more sophisticated and rogue state-sponsored criminals won't be lagging very far behind.
There is no evidence in existence to suggest code breaking quantum computers are even feasible.
There's no good reason why our web security infrastructure shouldn't immediately begin upgrades to support multiple, extensible and arbitrary methods of key exchange, including but not limited to stateful solutions using out of band preshared keys.
TLS provides agility for key exchange and adding cipher suites is a routine affair - there are literally hundreds of them. Everyone will at least have to rekey and at the most update their TLS stacks. Both have been done before and isn't such a big deal in the grand scheme of things.
By far the biggest problem takes the form of retroactive decrypting of previously captured encrypted data including data protected
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By the time we know for sure it's feasible, I suspect we'll be pretty darn close to having something real to worry about. A lot of people used to claim that Van Eck interception was infeasible in real world conditions but, uh... it's not. Seeing as how it not only allow
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There is no evidence in existence to suggest code breaking quantum computers are even feasible.
Indeed. On the other hand, there is quite a bit of evidence that Quantum Computers cannot scale. For QC's that can actually do computations, they are still at what, 8 bit or so? After a few decades of research? This indicates to any sane person (not the deranged fanbois that think wishing something into existence works) that Quantum Computers may scale inverse-exponential, i.e. around a 100 bits or so you reach the limit of what is possible in this universe.
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Your contention is that D-Wave has somehow fooled Google, NASA, Las Alamos National Laboratory and Lockheed Martin and they're idiots? That's a pretty strong claim based on a vague reference to one study (*) which isn't applicable to this hardware (tests were run on a 108 qubit system, and as the summary points out true quantum systems scale out at more than 2x per bit). I'm by no means an expert on quantum systems and I'm not claiming that DWave is a true quantum system but I do where I'm placing my bet
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You think there are no idiots with budget to spare at Google, NASA, Los Alamos or Lockheed Martin? In what world do you live?
Incidentally, I did not give any reference, you pulled that out of your behind.
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I have to agree that it seems unlikely they were all fooled. But consider this: D-Wave has not and cannot deliver. So they have built a "big lie" and they have found enough people that believe them and would have a lot of egg on their face if they admitted to being wrong. My take is that they found gullible techno-fanbois at all these institutions and worked on them hard and now these cannot back out.
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Note to moderators: If a posting ends up at +2, Troll, the down-voters have failed to consider properly whether the posting had merit or not, i.e. they failed.
On the down side... (Score:5, Funny)
One cat dies for each bit that is settled in the solution.
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Quit looking at the cats. You are killing them.
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How Soon Until... (Score:2)
...I can get a graphics card based on this, and a datajack? [wikia.com]
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A datajack? You are clearly lacking courage.
pesky qubits (Score:3, Funny)
Goddammit, I just found a qubit that needed annealing but I think its slipped down the back of the sofa.
Quote from TFA (Score:1)
I'm all for quantum computers. I think they will eventually become useful especially for biology yet their current and future capabilities like everything else are being way over hyped.
D-wave is not hundreds of billions of times faster neither does 1000 vs 2000 qubits marketing jargon mean anything substantive in and of itself.
To put this into perspective a real 2000 qubit quantum computer should be at least 10^300 times faster than a real 1000 qubit quantum computer. Not a measly billion or trillion or e
Re: Better Get One Soon ... (Score:2)
Shut up, ya hoser!
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At some point, someone may create a "general purpose" quantum computer. There is currently no such thing but there are programming languages for it which you can run in a simulation. Obviously you'll have a number of new operators to understand for it to be any useful to you.
This chip is supposed to do annealing but the lack of scientific support and the lack of results points more towards a big scam. At $14M you'd expect at least some results but there is no speed up measurable from classical computing. Al
All I know is: Holodeck is on it's way!!!! (Score:1)
You start throwing words around like quantum and computer and annealing with massive levels of qubits - this is obviously where we are headed... right guys? RIGHT!?
100 billion times faster (Score:2)
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It's not about the number of qubits ... (Score:2)
... but the degree of entanglement. [wavewatching.net]
I developed a RNG which is a million times faster (Score:1)
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All you need now is an atomic vector plotter!
I have a long plug and a small dangly bit.
Every time they test it, it changes the outcome (Score:1)
D-Wave: As good as an apple falling off a tree (Score:2)
I present to you a formidable, all-new computer: An apple tree, with one ripe apple so loose it will fall off the tree soon.
You say you want proof that this new computer is superior to all classical computers? Here you go: I admit that my apple tree computer is optimized to solve a certain class of problems. It's optimized to simulate the behaviour of an apple falling down a tree - with insane precision, down to the level of considering even the smallest effects of quantum mechanics, gravity waves and neutr