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> Although there are almost certainly some specialized niches where it would make sense I don't think so. I haven't heard of any and would like to learn about

by agsamek 11y ago

> Although there are almost certainly some specialized niches where it would make sense I don't think so. I haven't heard of any and would like to learn about even one that was validated by any of: algorithms experts or real life.

nwah1 11y ago
My understanding is that quantum computers are very good at simulating quantum physics. Which, granted, probably doesn't have many commercial applications.
- murbard2 11y ago
  Designing better transistors, discovering new drugs...
- gjm11 11y ago
  "Normal" quantum computers are good at simulating quantum physics, or would be if we could build big enough ones. D-Wave's adiabatic allegedly-quantum computer is not, so far as anyone knows. The only thing (so far as I am aware) that anyone knows how to do with D-Wave's machine is to use it to find approximate solutions to certain optimization problems. The last I heard, it did so slower than a standard-issue laptop running (non-quantum!) software designed to find approximate solutions to the same optimization problem that D-Wave's underlying hardware models. That was before the release of the latest D-Wave machine. I don't think it was ever clear whether D-Wave's device scales better than a conventional computer when trying to solve larger problems. Perhaps it does, in which case their new $10M machine may outperform commodity laptops. [EDITED to add: see http://www.archduke.org/stuff/d-wave-comment-on-comparison-with-classical-computers/ http://www.archduke.org/stuff/d-wave-comment-on-comparison-w... and the other pages linked therefrom for some comparisons between D-Wave's reported performance and that of some heuristic optimization software running on a commodity laptop. Disclosure: the author is a friend of mine.]
gh02t 11y ago
If we're talking about the D-Wave in particular then no, I don't think there's anybody who's going to prefer them for real work as they're not competitive. I'm pretty sure most people are buying them as experimental platforms to play with an emerging technology and nobody expects them to actually be practical. If we're talking about quantum computers in general, then there's several places where a hypothetical ideal quantum computer with competitive performance would have an advantage. The typical example is in cryptography, where Shor's integer factorization algorithm ( https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Shor%27s_algorithm https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Shor%27s_algorithm ) would likely be fast enough to break modern public key cryptography in reasonable (i.e., polynomial) time.

by agsamek 11y ago

nwah1 11y ago

My understanding is that quantum computers are very good at simulating quantum physics. Which, granted, probably doesn't have many commercial applications.

murbard2 11y ago
Designing better transistors, discovering new drugs...
gjm11 11y ago
"Normal" quantum computers are good at simulating quantum physics, or would be if we could build big enough ones. D-Wave's adiabatic allegedly-quantum computer is not, so far as anyone knows. The only thing (so far as I am aware) that anyone knows how to do with D-Wave's machine is to use it to find approximate solutions to certain optimization problems. The last I heard, it did so slower than a standard-issue laptop running (non-quantum!) software designed to find approximate solutions to the same optimization problem that D-Wave's underlying hardware models. That was before the release of the latest D-Wave machine. I don't think it was ever clear whether D-Wave's device scales better than a conventional computer when trying to solve larger problems. Perhaps it does, in which case their new $10M machine may outperform commodity laptops. [EDITED to add: see http://www.archduke.org/stuff/d-wave-comment-on-comparison-with-classical-computers/ http://www.archduke.org/stuff/d-wave-comment-on-comparison-w... and the other pages linked therefrom for some comparisons between D-Wave's reported performance and that of some heuristic optimization software running on a commodity laptop. Disclosure: the author is a friend of mine.]

gh02t 11y ago

If we're talking about the D-Wave in particular then no, I don't think there's anybody who's going to prefer them for real work as they're not competitive. I'm pretty sure most people are buying them as experimental platforms to play with an emerging technology and nobody expects them to actually be practical. If we're talking about quantum computers in general, then there's several places where a hypothetical ideal quantum computer with competitive performance would have an advantage. The typical example is in cryptography, where Shor's integer factorization algorithm ( https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Shor%27s_algorithm https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Shor%27s_algorithm ) would likely be fast enough to break modern public key cryptography in reasonable (i.e., polynomial) time.