3 ms·

I think https://xkcd.com/678/ https://xkcd.com/678/ is relavent. Basically we are far enough out from "useful" QC that its anyone's guess (except for the peopl

I think https://xkcd.com/678/ https://xkcd.com/678/ is relavent. Basically we are far enough out from "useful" QC that its anyone's guess (except for the people trying to convince you to invest in their startup). That said relavent metrics include number of qubits and their error rate (once you get past a certain number with a low enough error rate you can start to use error correction which is when things really start to become interesting) It does depend a bit on what you mean by "useful" though see also https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Noisy_intermediate-scale_quantum_era https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Noisy_intermediate-scale_quant...

foresttony 2y ago
Good job commenting on something you know nothing about...
- bawolff 2y ago
  If you think i said something incorrect or misleading, by all means feel free to correct the record.
vtomole 2y ago
Yes, QC is far enough that it's "anyone's guess", but the field is actively working on sliding the answer to this problem from "anyone's guess" to "a bit more certain". It will never be 100% certain until the useful QC appears but we can decrease the probability of our predictions being pure guesswork. As an example, DARPA is funding a project to find the first high impact QC applications https://www.darpa.mil/work-with-us/publications-highlighting-potential-impact-of-quantum-computing-in-specific-applications https://www.darpa.mil/work-with-us/publications-highlighting... along with finding when the first hardware to run those applications can be built https://www.darpa.mil/work-with-us/quantum-benchmarking-initiative https://www.darpa.mil/work-with-us/quantum-benchmarking-init.... QC startups should be funded because industry is a crucial component of QC progress and large-scale QC labs (Google, IBM e.t.c) can't work on all the ideas. The ideas that come from startups do accelerate QC development.

foresttony 2y ago

Good job commenting on something you know nothing about...

bawolff 2y ago
If you think i said something incorrect or misleading, by all means feel free to correct the record.

vtomole 2y ago

Yes, QC is far enough that it's "anyone's guess", but the field is actively working on sliding the answer to this problem from "anyone's guess" to "a bit more certain". It will never be 100% certain until the useful QC appears but we can decrease the probability of our predictions being pure guesswork. As an example, DARPA is funding a project to find the first high impact QC applications https://www.darpa.mil/work-with-us/publications-highlighting-potential-impact-of-quantum-computing-in-specific-applications https://www.darpa.mil/work-with-us/publications-highlighting... along with finding when the first hardware to run those applications can be built https://www.darpa.mil/work-with-us/quantum-benchmarking-initiative https://www.darpa.mil/work-with-us/quantum-benchmarking-init.... QC startups should be funded because industry is a crucial component of QC progress and large-scale QC labs (Google, IBM e.t.c) can't work on all the ideas. The ideas that come from startups do accelerate QC development.