
Researchers create new computer combining optical and electronic technology - hn-user
http://news.stanford.edu/2016/10/20/stanford-researchers-create-new-special-purpose-computer/
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hn-user
A fully-programmable 100-spin coherent Ising machine with all-to-all
connections

[http://science.sciencemag.org/content/early/2016/10/21/scien...](http://science.sciencemag.org/content/early/2016/10/21/science.aah5178)

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danielmorozoff
This group at Stanford, collaborates closely with the Takesue group in Japan,
who have the scaled version (2000 Node) ising machine in another article in
Science:

[http://science.sciencemag.org/content/early/2016/10/19/scien...](http://science.sciencemag.org/content/early/2016/10/19/science.aah4243)

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andrewflnr
Is there any sense in which this is solving NP-complete problems in polynomial
time? They're clearly aiming at NP-complete problems, but it's not clear how
efficient this machine is or how general it is.

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nabla9
They are developing system that could provide good heuristic solutions to NP-
complete problem. That does not count as being able to _solve_ NP-complete
problems. It won't find optimal solution in all cases, but it can be
practically very useful.

Their approach falls into the same category as simulated annealing or
shrinking bubbles: [https://www.technologyreview.com/s/512821/shrinking-blob-
com...](https://www.technologyreview.com/s/512821/shrinking-blob-computes-
traveling-salesman-solutions/)

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ilostmykeys
D-Wave does that with supposedly quantum version of 'spin glass' model, a
generalization of the Ising model.

