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from the all-your-cryto-are-belong-to-us dept.
Google Takes Aim at Quantum Supremacy with 72-Qubit Chip
Google's Quantum AI Lab has revealed it is testing a 72-qubit quantum processor in its bid to become the first company to demonstrate quantum supremacy.
The chip, known as Bristlecone, was revealed on Monday at the annual American Physical Society meeting in Los Angeles. Given that you only need 49 or 50 qubits to demonstrate quantum supremacy – the capability of a quantum computer to outperform the largest supercomputers on certain computational tasks – a 72-qubit processor should be more than enough to achieve such a milestone. However, the error rates of such a system must be low enough so that it to be of practical use. Moreover, the ability to test a system for quantum supremacy is confounded by the very fact that classical computers cannot be used to compare test results.
Julian Kelly, a research scientist at the Quantum AI Lab who presented Bristlecone at this week's American Physical Society meeting, described the progress of their work in a Google Research blog post. In his writeup, he characterized the new chip as a "a testbed for research into system error rates and scalability of our qubit technology, as well as applications in quantum simulation, optimization, and machine learning."
Also at BGR.
(Score: 1) by anubi on Wednesday March 07 2018, @12:50PM (4 children)
Would something like this be able to decode DNA and tell us what's really in the "junk" DNA?
Analyze many samples to reveal exactly what codon does what? How to modify for any new critter we may want to instantiate?
How does one program such a thing to do something useful?
"Prove all things; hold fast that which is good." [KJV: I Thessalonians 5:21]
(Score: 2) by opinionated_science on Wednesday March 07 2018, @12:57PM (2 children)
there is no "junk" DNA. If it doesn't affect the reproductive rate of the organism, it will remain.
Besides, alot of the *function* of the "non-coding regions", is timing....
(Score: 1) by anubi on Thursday March 08 2018, @06:42AM (1 child)
Yep... the reason I put "junk" in quotes. Like you, I believe that is data.
Some of the DNA codes to building blocks... proteins... I believe the rest of the DNA is what to do with it, and like you say, when.
I have known for quite some time should I go through a program with a disassembler, get rid of everything that does not execute, reassemble the source - it won't run.
I get the idea that DNA "executes" in a manner very similar to how a computer would run it
"Prove all things; hold fast that which is good." [KJV: I Thessalonians 5:21]
(Score: 2) by opinionated_science on Thursday March 08 2018, @02:14PM
I seem to remember that when "Fugu" was sequenced, the prevailing quote was "it's like human with all the junk DNA removed".
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday March 07 2018, @01:01PM
One simply doesn't. Many, possibly entangled many, an orgy of them so to speak, may.