3 ms·

is there a single practical example of a real world problem being solved by a current quantum computer? all the talks i have seen involve a lot of hand waving a

is there a single practical example of a real world problem being solved by a current quantum computer? all the talks i have seen involve a lot of hand waving and talk of the future. i’m very skeptical that these capabilities are around the corner

JohnStrangeII 7y ago
AFAIK, currently probably not, but this would be a bad basis for extrapolation about future capabilities. Conventional supercomputers are insanely fast and current quantum computers do not yet have many qubits yet. But - very loosely speaking - if you add one qubit, the processing power can double. See the first answer here: [1] If the history of technology and cryptography teaches us anything, then quantum computers will break current encryption sooner than expected. If you're very paranoid, you may switch, in certain areas, to "quantum safe" symmetric encryption (higher key size, higher round numbers) with reasonably secure channel for key exchange instead of public key cryptography. [1] https://www.quora.com/Why-does-the-computing-power-of-a-quantum-computer-double-with-every-additional-qubit https://www.quora.com/Why-does-the-computing-power-of-a-quan...
deleted 7y ago
[deleted]
evrydayhustling 7y ago
Any quantum experts able to share a technical article on (a) what are the main obstacles to a universal quantum decryptor, and (b) what is the current progress curve on those obstacles? With this much on the line, someone has to have a detailed model they keep up to date...
orbifold 7y ago
Yeah a couple of related problems in fact: You are a professor and working on cold quantum gases, synthetic quantum systems, ... and can semi-plausibly claim that this has applications to quantum computing: Problem solved, you will get a whole bunch of funding. You found a bunch of linear algebra algebra algorithms and they use unitary matrices: Problem solved, founding secured. It is also a good buzzword prefix: Just prepend Quantum to any word and immediately get funding (See the recently 1 Billion Euro funded EU quantum initiative). In this respect it has similar applications as Neuro-something: A great way to get funding for a few years. (See Human Brain Project)

JohnStrangeII 7y ago

AFAIK, currently probably not, but this would be a bad basis for extrapolation about future capabilities. Conventional supercomputers are insanely fast and current quantum computers do not yet have many qubits yet. But - very loosely speaking - if you add one qubit, the processing power can double. See the first answer here: [1] If the history of technology and cryptography teaches us anything, then quantum computers will break current encryption sooner than expected. If you're very paranoid, you may switch, in certain areas, to "quantum safe" symmetric encryption (higher key size, higher round numbers) with reasonably secure channel for key exchange instead of public key cryptography. [1] https://www.quora.com/Why-does-the-computing-power-of-a-quantum-computer-double-with-every-additional-qubit https://www.quora.com/Why-does-the-computing-power-of-a-quan...

deleted 7y ago

[deleted]

evrydayhustling 7y ago

Any quantum experts able to share a technical article on (a) what are the main obstacles to a universal quantum decryptor, and (b) what is the current progress curve on those obstacles? With this much on the line, someone has to have a detailed model they keep up to date...

orbifold 7y ago

Yeah a couple of related problems in fact: You are a professor and working on cold quantum gases, synthetic quantum systems, ... and can semi-plausibly claim that this has applications to quantum computing: Problem solved, you will get a whole bunch of funding. You found a bunch of linear algebra algebra algorithms and they use unitary matrices: Problem solved, founding secured. It is also a good buzzword prefix: Just prepend Quantum to any word and immediately get funding (See the recently 1 Billion Euro funded EU quantum initiative). In this respect it has similar applications as Neuro-something: A great way to get funding for a few years. (See Human Brain Project)