SoylentNews is people
SoylentNews
Arthur T Knackerbracket has found the following story:
Just when it was looking like the underdog, classical computing is striking back. IBM has come up with a way to simulate quantum computers that have 56 quantum bits, or qubits, on a non-quantum supercomputer – a task previously thought to be impossible. The feat moves the goalposts in the fight for quantum supremacy, the effort to outstrip classical computers using quantum ones.
It used to be widely accepted that a classical computer cannot simulate more than 49 qubits because of memory limitations. The memory required for simulations increases exponentially with each additional qubit.
The closest anyone had come to putting the 49-qubit limit to a test was a 45-qubit simulation at the Swiss Federal Institute of Technology in Zurich, which needed 500 terabytes of memory. IBM's new simulation upends the assumption by simulating 56 qubits with only 4.5 terabytes.
The simulation is based on a mathematical trick that allows a more compact numerical representation of different arrangements of qubits, known as quantum states.
A quantum computing operation is typically represented by a table of numbers indicating what should be done to each qubit to produce a new quantum state. Instead, researchers at IBM's T. J. Watson Research Center in Yorktown Heights, New York, used tensors – effectively multidimensional tables augmented with axes beyond rows and columns.
[...] they've upped the ante in the race to outperform classical computers with quantum systems. Google previously said they were on track to build a working 49-qubit processor by the end of 2017, but that will no longer win them the achievement of quantum supremacy.
[...] IBM's goal is to build a quantum computer that can "explore practical problems" such as quantum chemistry, says Wisnieff. He hopes to check the accuracy of quantum computers against his simulations before putting real quantum computers to the test.
"I want to be able to write algorithms that I know the answers for before I run them on a real quantum computer," he says.
-- submitted from IRC
(Score: 4, Interesting) by RamiK on Monday October 23 2017, @07:01PM (11 children)
Yeah we all know rank 2 is matrix and rank >=3 is tensor and a few of us even know quantum mechanics is basically just EE's complex math + some stat and diffs so it stands to reason you're going to store results in tensors... But telling us this is their "magic sauce" is about as useful as telling us the principle of running a logic engine using mechanical parts or silicone is using arrays.
compiling...
(Score: 1, Interesting) by Anonymous Coward on Monday October 23 2017, @07:40PM (1 child)
As briefly noted in the actual article, encoding quantum operations in the form of tensors yields a much more compact data structure. On top of this, compact form of information, they discovered that the simulation could be implemented with tensors in an "embarrassingly parallel" fashion (that's the actual terminology for a computation that can be performed in a highly parallel manner).
So, their new tensor data structure and corresponding computational algorithm have turned out to be the bees knees.
Now, FUCK OFF!
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday October 24 2017, @09:24AM
It is basic etiquette to restrain from hurling insults and harsh language to logged-ins while posting under the provisory mask of anonymity.
This post, though, is a fair game, so go ahead if you will.
(Score: 1) by khallow on Monday October 23 2017, @07:50PM (7 children)
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Monday October 23 2017, @08:05PM (3 children)
The AC already said as much.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Monday October 23 2017, @08:53PM (1 child)
Yeah but then he did that mic drop thing.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Monday October 23 2017, @09:36PM
Did not!
(Score: 1) by khallow on Tuesday October 24 2017, @12:40AM
(Score: 2) by frojack on Monday October 23 2017, @08:28PM (2 children)
And maybe we are lucky they found this before everyone and dog started depending on Quantum Computing method for encryption only to find them cracked in the next cycle of discoveries. Equally lucky the government didn't move in and declare it a munition and keep it for themselves.
Its been less than three years since so-called quantum computers became a thing, although they've been speculated about since the 80's. Already we see Moore out in his garage revving its engines.
No, you are mistaken. I've always had this sig.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Monday October 23 2017, @09:13PM (1 child)
Moore died. Noone told you?
(Score: 1, Informative) by Anonymous Coward on Monday October 23 2017, @09:34PM
he still kickin it [wikipedia.org]
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Monday October 23 2017, @10:28PM
Have you seen some of those logic circuits that have been built in Minecraft?