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>"Already we run quantum computers that can perform calculations beyond the reach of classical computers" Yea this isn't true. Their 54 qubit machine can simul

>"Already we run quantum computers that can perform calculations beyond the reach of classical computers" Yea this isn't true. Their 54 qubit machine can simulate random circuits pretty fast but 1) that's not at all useful and specifically contrived as a test of "quantum supremacy". 2) totally debatable whether it's actually out of reach: >In the paper, it is argued that their device reached “quantum supremacy” and that “a state-of-the-art supercomputer would require approximately 10,000 years to perform the equivalent task.” We argue that an ideal simulation of the same task can be performed on a classical system in 2.5 days and with far greater fidelity https://www.ibm.com/blogs/research/2019/10/on-quantum-supremacy/ https://www.ibm.com/blogs/research/2019/10/on-quantum-suprem...

bawolff 5y ago
Ibm is a competitor in this space. Although there is some debate about google's claim, ibm is a very biased source as they have financial incentives to bad talk google. As far as point 1 goes, nobody ever claimed otherwise. Its just an arbitrary milestone. Walk before you run. Quantum supremacy is a step in the journey, not the destination. You make a hello world program before making actual useful programs.
- anon_tor_12345 5y ago
  >Ibm is a competitor in this space I'm well aware - doesn't mean they're not right. >You make a hello world program before making actual useful programs. how hilarious would it be if some chip manufacturer bragged about the performance of a hello world on their chip...?
- klyrs 5y ago
  That IBM is a competitor increases my trust in their refutation. IBM could have raced to to the same test, but on 56 qubits or whatever, and claimed quantum supremacy themselves. I've seen a lot of criticism that DWave is only good at making hardware that's hard to simulate without doing anything useful with it. What's different here?
  - bawolff 5y ago
    My understanding was that dwave was easy to simulate (albeit using a different algo than it was allegedly using)
    - klyrs 5y ago
      Has their Feb '21 paper been refuted? They claim a scaling advantage (in addition to a large speed advantage) over path integral Monte Carlo, which appears to be best in class for simulating their hardware. Do you know of a better algorithm? Also, what do you mean by "allegedly"? Aren't the basics of their hardware pretty well-understood, or do you think they're sitting on a secret classical algorithm that's fooled external researchers (including Google) into believing that they've demonstrated multiqubit entanglement?

bawolff 5y ago

Ibm is a competitor in this space. Although there is some debate about google's claim, ibm is a very biased source as they have financial incentives to bad talk google. As far as point 1 goes, nobody ever claimed otherwise. Its just an arbitrary milestone. Walk before you run. Quantum supremacy is a step in the journey, not the destination. You make a hello world program before making actual useful programs.

anon_tor_12345 5y ago
>Ibm is a competitor in this space I'm well aware - doesn't mean they're not right. >You make a hello world program before making actual useful programs. how hilarious would it be if some chip manufacturer bragged about the performance of a hello world on their chip...?
klyrs 5y ago
That IBM is a competitor increases my trust in their refutation. IBM could have raced to to the same test, but on 56 qubits or whatever, and claimed quantum supremacy themselves. I've seen a lot of criticism that DWave is only good at making hardware that's hard to simulate without doing anything useful with it. What's different here?
- bawolff 5y ago
  My understanding was that dwave was easy to simulate (albeit using a different algo than it was allegedly using)
  - klyrs 5y ago
    Has their Feb '21 paper been refuted? They claim a scaling advantage (in addition to a large speed advantage) over path integral Monte Carlo, which appears to be best in class for simulating their hardware. Do you know of a better algorithm? Also, what do you mean by "allegedly"? Aren't the basics of their hardware pretty well-understood, or do you think they're sitting on a secret classical algorithm that's fooled external researchers (including Google) into believing that they've demonstrated multiqubit entanglement?