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I've started recently in a subset of the domain and I feel that there is very strong potential in quantum computing, but there are still very important fundamen
by Yoric 3y ago
I've started recently in a subset of the domain and I feel that there is very strong potential in quantum computing, but there are still very important fundamental problems that have not been solved, so I believe that the hype comes too early.
There are very interesting algorithms that run on existing quantum machines. They are quite specialized (don't expect to run a quantum videogame any time soon, but expect to be able to simulate large physical systems or networks or power grids, etc.) but such algorithms could, if we had a sufficient number of stable qbits, solve problems that require entire datacenters, faster and with machines that require only a few times the energy of a desktop PC. However, no machine has a sufficient number of stable qbits, and it's currently unclear how to build machines that both have sufficient qbits and can run the same algorithms.
In a way, we're currently where traditional computing was in the early 50s. There is a feeling that all the difficult problems have been solved and the race is on between ~40 companies to be the first to build such machines. Everybody's marketing department claims to have the solution (or even to have working machines that can run these algorithms), but to the best of my knowledge, nobody has demonstrated them. There is a feeling that quantum computing will change the world. But I doubt it will happen overnight.
- dayjaby 3y agoIs 100% stable qbits that much of a requirement? I had the impression that allowing some instability (which you have in any real physical environment) is good for running any kind of approximative algorithms, i.e. algorithms that give you a good enough solution with a high enough probability.
- Yoric 3y agoClarifying because my previous message was over-ambitious: I started recently in the domain, so I'm still very much in the learning phase. Take everything I write with a pinch of salt. That being said, to the best of my understanding, you are absolutely right. It is entirely possible to have algorithms without stable/corrected qbits. However, developing an algorithm without stable/corrected qbits is something that can take years of research and a PhD in quantum mechanics – the only part that looks remotely like programming is that quantum algorithm researchers use Python at some point in their toolchain to setup the system. On the other hand, while with stable/corrected qbits, there is the hope that, some day, the industry can build quantum processors with gates comparable to the logical gates that power today's computers. This would in turn let developers program with quantum programming languages – in fact, some quantum programming languages that are recognizable as programming languages have already been designed, they just can't run on any actual hardware yet.
- rgmerk 3y agoThanks for the informative reply. I suppose my question would be - are we in the early fifties or still back in the forties? By 1951 there were stored program computers that were running real programs that did useful things. Yeah, they were super-expensive, unreliable, and laughably limited by today’s standards, but they were a real thing and even at that stage they had applications that people who weren’t tinkering with the machines themselves cared about. We don’t have that with quantum computing yet, do we?
- Yoric 3y agoGood question. I don't think that there is a 1:1 mapping. If this is any datapoint, there are several companies (including the one for which I work) that offer cloud access to their quantum machines, letting other labs/companies develop algorithms to solve their real problems with these machines.