

Is this the first practical quantum computer? (D-wave 128 qbit box) - iwwr
http://www.dwavesys.com/en/products-services.html

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bobds
It's not fake, but it's not the quantum computer you would expect.

[http://spectrum.ieee.org/computing/hardware/loser-dwave-
does...](http://spectrum.ieee.org/computing/hardware/loser-dwave-does-not-
quantum-compute/2)

"D-Wave's system uses a chip with little loops of niobium metal containing
Josephson junctions—two superconductors separated by an insulator. When the
chip is cooled to very low temperatures, tiny electrical currents flowing
around the loops exhibit quantum properties, and you can use the direction to
represent the states of a qubit: Counterclockwise represents 0, clockwise
represents 1, and current flowing both ways represents a superposition of 0
and 1.

D-Wave's superconducting qubits are not new, and other groups use similar
devices. But whereas most groups are trying to build the quantum logic gates
from which all computing operations can be derived—an approach known as the
gate model—D-Wave has adopted a different approach, called adiabatic quantum
computation. Here's the gist: You initialize a collection of qubits to their
lowest energy state. You then ever so gently (or adiabatically) turn on
interactions between the qubits, thus encoding a quantum algorithm. In the
end, the qubits drift to a new lowest-energy state. You then read out the
qubits to get the results."

~~~
hugh3
Yes, I wish they'd stop calling it a "quantum computer". It's not a quantum
computer. It's a thingy.

That said, I'm quite impressed that D-Wave is finally bringing out a thingy
that actually does something. Reading the Scott Aaronson post elsewhere in
this thread it appears that they've finally got around to demonstrating that
their thingy really _does_ do stuff that involves quantum mechanics.

They're still _way_ behind their implausible schedule, and their thingy still
can't do anything that a classical computer can't do a helluva lot faster and
cheaper, but I do congratulate them on having a proper working thingy.

But they need to stop calling this thingy a quantum computer.

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beloch
D-Wave has been operating under heavy-duty NDA's for a long time. I know of at
least two published authors in quantum physics who have signed an NDA and been
given the grand tour. I know one well enough to have asked him what he thought
without divulging anything he couldn't tell me. He said what D-Wave had when
he was there was not a general purpose quantum computer, but rather, a sort of
hard-coded specific purpose device not unlike an electronic circuit built to
implement a specific algorithm rather than function as a general purpose
programmable device.

Regardless, what D-Wave has is real enough that they are not being laughed at
in the circles that matter. I would also say that they aren't doing anything
that makes academics who are working on QC devices despair of doing anything
useful themselves. I think it's rather unlikely that this device is going to
be busting open RSA keys anytime soon.

In short, this is probably not fake or a scam. It's just not quite what the
original poster was hoping it was.

~~~
JulianMorrison
From what I've heard, this thing is designed to solve whatever can be
transformed into energy minimization problems - "travelling salesman", routing
the wires on printed circuit boards, urban planning, etc etc.

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smanek
Scott Aaronson is an MIT prof and a leading researcher in quantum computing.
Here is his take on a recent paper DWave published in Nature:

<http://www.scottaaronson.com/blog/?p=639>

(And the Nature paper:
[http://www.nature.com/nature/journal/v473/n7346/full/nature1...](http://www.nature.com/nature/journal/v473/n7346/full/nature10012.html))

~~~
gcb
"after four years of the quantum computing community being told to review a
restaurant based solely on its ice water and table settings, I’m delighted
that D-Wave has finally brought an appetizer."

haha... those physicists

~~~
darklajid
Later in that article:

> As some of you might be aware, I’m a theoretical computer scientist, not a
> physicist (much less an experimentalist).

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cubtastic71
ok so where is the "hello world" program for this type of system? .. wonders
if it could figure out the HTML5 specs before we do?

~~~
yid
Please consider returning to slashdot

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dublinclontarf
Is... is this real?

~~~
dublinclontarf
I emailed them asking how much and when. $10million USD available now.

Ouch.

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nothis
"Commercial"? That website looks like it's using the same web template as
Orbo.

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thorin
"It's a Ming Mecca chip!"

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DandelionRex
This is a) fake or b) a scam.

~~~
Bud
Yes, some quick googling appears to show that they've been pushing similar
scams since 2007 or so:

[http://www.google.com/search?sourceid=chrome&ie=UTF-8...](http://www.google.com/search?sourceid=chrome&ie=UTF-8&q=d-wave+hoax)

They claimed to have a 16-qubit machine then, whereas a recent (May 2) New
Yorker article revealed that Oxford's research lab quantum computer is only an
8-qubit machine, and that's in 2011. Yale has built one and it's only 2-qubit.

