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There seems to be some controversy as to whether or not the D-Wave machines actually are quantum computers. I don't understand this fully myself (so please elab
by maggit 15y ago
There seems to be some controversy as to whether or not the D-Wave machines actually are quantum computers. I don't understand this fully myself (so please elaborate if you can!), but it seems incredible that this 84 qubit quantum computer would just pop out of nowhere when the state of the art seems to be just a few qubits.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/D-Wave_Systems#Criticism http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/D-Wave_Systems#Criticism
- wladimir 15y agoI'm also not sure whether it can be called a "classical" quantum computer. On the other hand, the large corporate and government interest probably means that the devices are at least useful (or promising) for some kinds of computations. Either that or it's a very, very shrewd con.
- bostonpete 15y ago> just pop out of nowhere That's how quantum computing works.
- waqf 15y agoMy very limited understanding is that they have built a kind of analog computer that solves minimization problems. They claim it's an "adiabatic quantum computer" (a relatively-recently theorized implementation of quantum computing) but the skeptics think that it works by some classical method such as simulated annealing and therefore will never outperform classical computers.