The Universities Space Research Association has upgraded to a D-Wave system with 2,031 "qubits":
The Universities Space Research Association (USRA), as part of joint an ongoing joint collaboration with NASA and Google Inc. to operate a Quantum Artificial Intelligence Laboratory, has upgraded its current quantum annealing computer to a D-Wave 2000Q system. The computer offers the promise for solving challenging problems in a variety of applications including machine learning, scheduling, diagnostics, medicine and biology among others.
The newly upgraded system, which resides at the NASA Advanced Supercomputing Facility at NASA's Ames Research Center, has 2031 quantum bits (qubits) in its working graph–nearly double the number of qubits compared to the previous processor. It has several system enhancements that enable more control over the adiabatic quantum computing process allowing it to solve larger and more complex optimization problems than were previously possible.
According to Dr. David Bell, Director of the USRA Research Institute for Advanced Computer Science, "The Quantum AI Lab, in its first four years of operation, has supported diverse research by industry, academia and government research organizations. This has included research on the use of quantum computing for a range of applications including machine learning, planning and scheduling, diagnostics, medicine, biology, and finance."
"Computer time" will be offered free of charge to researchers.
Previously: Google and NASA Still on Board With D-Wave, Upgrade to 2048 "Qubits"
IBM and D-Wave Quantum Computing Announcements
(Score: 3, Interesting) by HiThere on Wednesday September 06 2017, @12:22AM (1 child)
It's my understanding that the DWave Computer is not a general purpose quantum computer, but only handles a specialized subset of the general Quantum Computer operations. That doesn't mean it doesn't have huge advantages in some areas, like, IIRC, simulated annealing.
It's possible that a real general quantum computer isn't practical, but until we know that for sure I feel we should draw a distinction between specialized variants and the general quantum computer.
If I'm wrong, perhaps someone will inform me.
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(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday September 06 2017, @06:26AM
The summary only says "adiabatic quantum computing". That is what D-Wave says their "quantum annealer" does.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Adiabatic_quantum_computation [wikipedia.org]