There's a follow up article at IEEE Spectrum on the work being done at Google Quantum Artificial Intelligence Lab, a joint venture with NASA and the Universities Space Research Association (USRA).
This follows the earlier news that Google hired Professor John Martinis and his team to help their commercial quantum computer project. This was also reported at Techcrunch, Wired and others.
Many news outlets, including IEEE Spectrum, had initially assumed that Google's hiring of the Martinis team signalled the technology giant's intent to develop universal quantum computing hardware as an alternative to D-Wave's specialized quantum annealing machines.
D-Wave, one of Google's existing partners in Quantum Computing, have produced specialised hardware, which appears to solve a specific optimisation problem using Quantum Annealing. However there has been controversy about the claims made by D-Wave, the D-Wave Two is not a universal quantum computer, and although there is evidence of quantum effects it does not appear to be able to reliably outperform traditional computers according to independent performance testing, summarised at CNet.
This announcement had lead some to see this as a change of approach for Google, However this new article goes into more detail about the objectives of Professor Martinis group, clarifying some of the earlier speculation:
In the long run, Google and Martinis do want to work toward universal gate-model quantum computers capable of solving a wide range of problems. But they have set their immediate sights on building a quantum annealing computer similar to the D-Wave machines that can only solve optimization problems.
There's an introductory video to Quantum Computing by PHD Comics covering background and terminology (spotted though the Scott Aaronson blog links).
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D-Wave Systems Inc. has announced that it has built a quantum annealer with over 1000 qubits. Previously, D-Wave promised to deliver 1152 qubit systems in March 2015.
D-Wave's quantum computer runs a quantum annealing algorithm to find the lowest points, corresponding to optimal or near optimal solutions, in a virtual "energy landscape." Every additional qubit doubles the search space of the processor. At 1000 qubits, the new processor considers 21000 possibilities simultaneously, a search space which dwarfs the 2512 possibilities available to the 512-qubit D-Wave Two. In fact, the new search space contains far more possibilities than there are particles in the observable universe.
The new processors comprise over 128,000 Josephson junctions (tunnel junctions with superconducting electrodes) in a 6-metal layer planar process with 0.25µm features, believed to be the most complex superconductor integrated circuits ever built.
The press release goes on to explain that the new generation of D-Wave processors runs at a 40% colder temperature (closer to absolute zero than before), reduces noise levels, and allows for "new modes of use."
A blog post explains that specific delivered systems will vary in qubit count, but should have around 1152 qubits.
Original Submission
(Score: 2) by takyon on Thursday September 18 2014, @09:58PM
"Quantum annealing" must be a lot easier to achieve if Google's second quantum venture is also not a universal quantum computer.
[SIG] 10/28/2017: Soylent Upgrade v14 [soylentnews.org]
(Score: 2, Interesting) by lentilsoup on Thursday September 18 2014, @10:09PM
Yep, quantum computing is exactly what Google needs. The uncertainty principle underlies most of their "improvements". With their now default "non-verbatim" approach, which now ignores quotation marks if it feels like it, they should just register clippy.com and get it over with.
There are no legumes but lentils, and soy is their condiment.
(Score: 2, Insightful) by pnkwarhall on Friday September 19 2014, @01:12AM
You're kidding?! I'm already trying to quit Google for other reasons. If Google removes just one or two more search operators (mainly "site:") I will no longer have any reason to use their search engine. The removal of boolean AND was almost a deal-breaker, and the removal of quoted strings might be enough to drive me away entirely.
Lift Yr Skinny Fists Like Antennas to Heaven
(Score: 1) by Zanothis on Friday September 19 2014, @02:29PM
I think you misspelled NSA.
OTOH, I'm curious about why this is being done jointly with space organizations. Can anyone shed any light on what the "specific optimisation problem" is? I assume that it is incredibly applicable to the aerospace field since Lockheed is one of the (only?) other D-Wave customers.