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Can this 56 qubit computer break DES faster than conventional computers? Could it break an arbitrary 56 bit block cipher faster than conventional computers? Or
by stcredzero 8y ago
Can this 56 qubit computer break DES faster than conventional computers? Could it break an arbitrary 56 bit block cipher faster than conventional computers? Or is it limited in a way which limits it to specific problems? I suspect the answer is the latter.
- sp332 8y agoWell it's certainly not as fast as a real quantum computer would be. The advantage it has over similar-scale real quantum computers is that it exists.
- 6nf 8y agoNo, 56 qubits is still much too small to break any useful encryption. And your second point is true too - these are not general purpose quantum computers and can't run arbitrary quantum algorithms.
- caymanjim 8y agoI'm not expecting quantum computers to actually do anything faster than conventional computers for many years, and that's fine; making things incrementally better is usually much easier than making them work in the first place. People have been simulating quantum circuits as proof-of-concept for quantum algorithms, and D-Wave has a "quantum annealing" machine (although a preliminary glance suggests there's skepticism about whether that involves any provable quantum effect), and there are frequent reports about pushing the limits of entangled qubit count, but I'm wondering if anyone's actually made a quantum device that solves even a specific problem faster than non-quantum physics would allow (hence my original comment along those lines), rather than faster than conventional hardware (which could take years or decades to match).