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Google Buys a Quantum Computer
- ozh 13y agoAll jokes aside, it's fairly obvious we're dooomed to be Skynet'd one day or another in the future.
- crucialfelix 13y agothat depends on your definition of "we" ozh fourth of ten, you've got glass installed, right ?
- lmm 13y agoHave D-Wave demonstrated any actual quantum behaviour yet? I had them down as a scam prior to the google involvement; now I'm not sure what to think.
- Ygg2 13y agoThere have been some calculations that are consistent with entaglement which is a premise for quantum behavior. However D-Wave isn't a general quantum computer. It's an adiabatic quantum computer. I'm pretty sure it can't solve Shor's algorithm, because it only does function optimizations.
- i_am_dead 13y agoD-Wave does have a factoring algorithm. See the comments from D-Wave here: http://dwave.wordpress.com/2011/05/11/learning-to-program-the-d-wave-one/ http://dwave.wordpress.com/2011/05/11/learning-to-program-th... "We do have a factoring algorithm that I’m going to do a series of blog posts on"
- lucian1900 13y agoIf they actually do have a factoring algorithm, it's easy for them to prove: factor something we give them that is obviously unfeasible for classical computers and give us the result.
- Retric 13y agoQuantum computers can't solve arbitrarily large factirisation problems. The signal gets weaker the largers the numbers get to the point where factoring a 4096 bit number is not going to happen.
- cantos 13y agoReal quantum computers don't exist. If one did exist it would need to factor numbers much larger than 4096 bits efficiently for it to be considered a real quantum computer.
- Retric 13y agoAnd all true scotsman wear kilts. We consider 8bit computers real computers even though they can't run windows 8. The same can be said for quantum computers, a 64qubit quibit quantum CPU could be vary useful even if it can't factor 4096bit numbers. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Qubit http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Qubit PS: We have solid state 4bit quantum computers right now. They may not be useful for much, but that's in part because we have spent hundreds of billions of dollars perfecting classical computers.
- sp332 13y agoQuantum computers do exist. But it's hard to build large ones. The largest one so far was able to factor 143=11x13. http://phys.org/news/2012-04-largest-factored-quantum-algorithm.html http://phys.org/news/2012-04-largest-factored-quantum-algori...
- pfortuny 13y agoThere are the RSA challenges which are as public as you get them. Just factor a bunch of the numbers... That IS peer reviewing and no mistake. http://www.rsa.com/rsalabs/node.asp?id=2092 http://www.rsa.com/rsalabs/node.asp?id=2092
- danbruc 13y agoThey are probably not able to factor interesting numbers - here is an estimation from Physics SE what their technology is probably capable of. http://physics.stackexchange.com/questions/11063/can-quantum-annealing-be-used-for-factorization http://physics.stackexchange.com/questions/11063/can-quantum...
- greenmountin 13y agoThis is absurd. That's a comment on a blog post, proposing a bombastic title, "Better than Shor". I'm pretty sure if they could get anywhere near Shor using their architecture they'd get more than a sympathy Nature paper. The truth is, D-Wave has done nothing to foster the coherence of their "qubits", and so they have built a very expensive, superconducting, classical computer. There is no quantum trick, actually. You have a system of buckets and you adjust the pipes and pumps between them so that in steady-state the water levels solve some problem you program in (with the pumps). Then you start in a random configuration, turn on the earthquake machine for a bit of randomness, and end up in the "ground state" solution. The exponential speedup of quantum algorithms is sketchy enough: good luck performing an N-qubit logic gate, or in assuming that it's your favorite black-box that need only be executed a polynomial number of times (every quantum computing textbook uses their own set of universal gates). But these guys aren't even trying.
- sp332 13y agoThere is an adiabatic factoring algorithm. http://phys.org/news/2012-04-largest-factored-quantum-algorithm.html http://phys.org/news/2012-04-largest-factored-quantum-algori...
- mtrimpe 13y agoIndeed. It's still quadratic time but it's a significant step up.
- gaze 13y agoQuantum annealing is a real thing. Probably could make for some pretty fast optimization. What's the problem?
- pfedor 13y agoThe truth is, D-Wave has done nothing to foster the coherence of their "qubits", and so they have built a very expensive, superconducting, classical computer. There is no quantum trick, actually. Scott Aaronson, the self-described "Chief D-Wave Skeptic", disagrees with you: Now, I’d say, D-Wave finally has cleared the evidence-for-entanglement bar—and, while they’re not the first to do so with superconducting qubits, they’re certainly the first to do so with so many superconducting qubits. So I congratulate D-Wave on this accomplishment. If this had been advertised from the start as a scientific research project—”of course we’re a long way from QC being practical— —but we’ve shown experimentally that can entangle 100 superconducting qubits with controllable couplings”—my reaction would’ve been, “cool!” -- http://www.scottaaronson.com/blog/?p=1400 http://www.scottaaronson.com/blog/?p=1400
- yk 13y agoIt seems that they did build a probably quantum but quite likely not computer. They are actually solving some optimization problem. And they do this quite well. However as far as I understood, they did not convincingly demonstrate that they are actually using a quantum version or a classical version of the system. And quite likely they can not run arbitrary computations. So it seems that the jury is still out, if they did build a quantum computer or a very specialized classical hardware.
- mike_ivanov 13y agoIt is an adiabatic quantum computer: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Adiabatic_quantum_computation https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Adiabatic_quantum_computation
- Jach 13y agoNot that I know of, but my most recent information comes from this over-a-year-old post: http://www.scottaaronson.com/blog/?p=954 http://www.scottaaronson.com/blog/?p=954 Google buying one doesn't make me shift much one way or another -- D-Wave has built something interesting that seems to be faster than other hardware, they are able to improve from the marketing buzz around 'quantum', but may or may not be using any quantum effects. People like http://jeffjonas.typepad.com/ http://jeffjonas.typepad.com/ have algorithms for problems that do increasingly better than the competition with increasingly "harder" or larger instances, so that behavior isn't really that weird.
- i_am_dead 13y agoYes they've published proof. Also check this for more recent news: http://arstechnica.com/science/2013/05/d-waves-quantum-optimizer-pitted-against-traditional-computers/ http://arstechnica.com/science/2013/05/d-waves-quantum-optim...
- oneofthose 13y agoThey did demonstrate quantum behavior in a Nature paper [0] they published in 2011. [0] http://www.nature.com/nature/journal/v473/n7346/full/nature10012.html http://www.nature.com/nature/journal/v473/n7346/full/nature1...
- stablepeak 13y agoSo in the end it is something like a Hopfield Network implemented in a physical system?
- mike_ivanov 13y agoWhy don't you read their site? There's a lot of material explaining how it works.
- cdibona 13y agoHere's a paper that we felt answered this question: http://arxiv.org/abs/1304.4595 http://arxiv.org/abs/1304.4595 Like you, I was worried about the snake oil aspects of qc, but ...well, I got over it when I looked into the science of the d-wave implementation and talked with folks like Sergio. Please note,we're talking about a quantum annealer here, not a full on qc and we're okay with that :-) Also, disclaimer: I'm a googler who worked with our quantum folks and nasa to get the machine in place.
- foobarqux 13y agoHere's a great post summarizing that paper: http://www.scottaaronson.com/blog/?p=1400 http://www.scottaaronson.com/blog/?p=1400
- deleted 13y ago[deleted]
- d4vlx 13y agoI am still skeptical for reasons spelled out here: http://www.scottaaronson.com/blog/?p=954 http://www.scottaaronson.com/blog/?p=954 It is unclear if they are actually taking advantage or quantum effects or if similar machines could be built using much simpler and cheaper classical effects.
- mellotron 13y agoSingularity draws ever closer...
- 6d0debc071 13y agoAnd the target size for friendly systems is probably tiny.
- MildlySerious 13y agoI think if there is someone I would not want to own a quantum computer, next to Lockheed Martin, thats Google. They already are at least 10 years ahead of everyone else. If they are the first to spend the money on seriously making use of quantum computers, who on earth is going to stop them if they decide to make bad use of their power? I'd really like to see this power in a companies hands that is not against the concept of privacy.
- blocking_io 13y agoThey already are at least 10 years ahead of everyone else What one Earth does this mean?
- scotty79 13y agoI guess he meant amassing data, computing power and knowledge to apply latter to the former.
- UniZero 13y agoWell, he did include "at least" which suggests he was just coming up with a rough figure. I somewhat agree with him. There is no denying that Google is (arguably) one of the most powerful companies out there. Are they ten years ahead of everyone else? Maybe, maybe not. But one thing for certain is that they have the computing power, finance,and connections to pretty much pursue whatever they want. Is that a bad thing? Who knows. It really boils down to whether anyone/anything should ever have that kind of power.
- mellotron 13y agoJust wait until Google self driving tech is installed into a majority of new cars in 20 years. Or less.
- alberich 13y ago> I'd really like to see this power in a companies hands that is not against the concept of privacy Is there any company like this? I mean... it seems companies won't be against privacy as long as it doesn't get in the way of making profit.
- carlob 13y agoRecently I read an article [1] about this, and it seems that D-Wave has a large advantage in optimization problems that pop up often in machine learning. I think this is a lot less esoteric than it sounds: a company develops a computer that is a lot faster at optimizing using a quantum trick, we do classical machine learning faster. I'm pretty certain they're not doing anything qualitatively different than before. No (largely debunked) Penrose theories on quantum consciousness, sorry. [1] http://www.newscientist.com/article/dn23519-commercial-quantum-computer-leaves-pc-in-the-dust.html http://www.newscientist.com/article/dn23519-commercial-quant...
- JoeAltmaier 13y agoBut their demo software is to solve the traveling salesman problem - with 4 nodes. I can do that on paper. If the bloody thing works, why not show us how to solve it for 50 countries, or all the counties in Ireland, or something that shows it actually doing something cool? It looks like a scam.
- reiche 13y agoBut does it run BF3?
- drstrangevibes 13y agoAnd all should cry, Beware ! Beware ! His flashing eyes, his floating hair ! Weave a circle round him thrice, And close your eyes with holy dread, For he on honey-dew hath fed, And drunk the milk of Paradise
- nicholassmith 13y agoInteresting, I thought D-Wave was still a bit ropey and quantum computing was a bit of a fussy problem to get working consistently. Although it comes as no surprise Google is getting on the quantum computing bandwagon nice and early, but the idea of the pinnacle of algorithmic research with quantum computing being done by a company that likes to optimise data processing to help advertise to you more effectively is...well, frankly somewhat ridiculous.
- michaelochurch 13y agoWhenever I hear about Google doing some genuine technology, it just makes me a million times more fucking angry to compare what Google must be like if you're a Real Googler (machine learning projects, basic research, quantum computing, meaningful work) to the misery that the other 90% endure. I feel like this should be much more of an HR problem than it seems to be. Whenever it comes out that Google's real members are working on a neat AI or robotics problem, everyone who's stuck working on some dead-end maintenance project for some terminal middle manager ought to go to a VP and say, "I want on this cutting-edge technology now or I will fucking quit." That 18-months bullshit should be cause for shit to get blown up.
- contango 13y agoThat doesn't seem like the most effective way of getting involved...
- prawks 13y agoSo who works on the rest of the existing Google systems once everyone just up and switches to doing research and "meaningful work"?
- goatforce5 13y agoRight... And someone needs to maintain the boring systems so Google can operate their core services (search and ad sales, say) to pay for the neat stuff that the (ahem) 'real' Googlers do. Some employees may be more easily replaced than others, but those dull jobs are often equally important.
- michaelochurch 13y agoWell, here's how I think about it. If you have an open allocation system where people are free to work directly for the company, then people spend some time on the research work that interests them, and some on the maintenance and upkeep of critical systems. Why do they volunteer for less attractive projects? Because they actually care, because the company is (imagine this) worth caring about. Once the maintenance work is done by volunteers rather than extortion victims, it starts getting a lot of respect and people to do it to be "heroes". So yes, it still gets done. On the other hand, if you work in a careerist closed-allocation hellhole where your boss has unilateral authority to whip it out and flow a shot on your performance reviews/"calibration score" (i.e. managerial extortion) then, obviously people are going to look out only for themselves and the maintenance won't get done unless someone's forced to do it (in which case, it's done very badly). People will not freely participate in a closed allocation company's upkeep because the work culture of a closed-allocation firm is not worth caring about or protecting. They're both equilibrium states. In one (open allocation) people see themselves as citizens and do the full mix of the work: the important and fun stuff, but also the less-fun but critical "hero" work. In the other (closed allocation/extortion economy) people realize that the company has no consideration for them and that no one's looking out for their careers, so they take anything that's not nailed down and the critical upkeep work doesn't get done.
- loceng 13y agoAwesome
- kolbe 13y agoWhile I loathe Ayn Rand I have to give her some credit for capturing accurate human behavior in Atlas Shrugged: the D-Wave skeptics seem to behave exactly like Rearden's detractors. But in the face of it all, D-Wave keeps plugging along, landing larger contracts, and hitting more impressive benchmarks. They may fizzle out in a flame of failure in the end, but as it stands, they seem like they're doing a great job.
- deleted 13y ago[deleted]
- jmilkbal 13y agoI hadn't considered just how radically different a quantum computer would look. That is really something else, like the gauss gun from Half Life.
- GigabyteCoin 13y agoThey can't hash SHA256 with this quantum computer, can they?
- mike_ivanov 13y ago"Quantum" is a bit of buzzword in a sense that people understand it in a very narrow sense. D-Wave's system is NOT a "classical" qubit-based quantum computer. What it does is essentially global optimization of multimode functions using quantum effects.
- dave_sullivan 13y agoTrue, but significantly faster global optimization of multimode functions by any means turns out to be pretty useful for exactly the types of ML problems that are stretching the limits of current hardware. This seems like a promising first step towards technology that could be really useful if it comes anywhere close to doing what it claims.
- throwaway1980 13y agoI like this idea of a classical quantum computer. Do we also have CC, QC, and QQ computers?