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IBM unveils its first commercial quantum computer
At CES, IBM today announced its first commercial quantum computer for use outside of the lab. The 20-qubit system combines into a single package the quantum and classical computing parts it takes to use a machine like this for research and business applications. That package, the IBM Q system, is still huge, of course, but it includes everything a company would need to get started with its quantum computing experiments, including all the machinery necessary to cool the quantum computing hardware.
While IBM describes it as the first fully integrated universal quantum computing system designed for scientific and commercial use, it's worth stressing that a 20-qubit machine is nowhere near powerful enough for most of the commercial applications that people envision for a quantum computer with more qubits — and qubits that are useful for more than 100 microseconds. It's no surprise then, that IBM stresses that this is a first attempt and that the systems are "designed to one day tackle problems that are currently seen as too complex and exponential in nature for classical systems to handle." Right now, we're not quite there yet, but the company also notes that these systems are upgradable (and easy to maintain).
Quantum computers are real things, right?
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday January 10 2019, @02:49AM (4 children)
I would have thought there would be more appreciation for developing science around here. This is like someone selling the first transistor but it only works for a few seconds. Why shit on this when they expicitly state it isn't a consumer device? QC wasn't even in Back to the Future!
(Score: 2) by AthanasiusKircher on Thursday January 10 2019, @03:10AM
Not trying to create flamebait, but you have seen stories around here on climate change, right? Appreciation of science only goes so far here if it doesn't accord with preconceived notions...
(Score: 2) by Runaway1956 on Thursday January 10 2019, @03:44AM (2 children)
Appreciation for science should include marketing a product that is in very early pre-alpha? It seems that maybe they should have just solicited funds for further research, rather than sell a bill of goods.
There is the fact that whoever coughs up the cash for this pre-alpha will develop relations with IBM's development staff, offer feedback, and possibly steer engineering and development decisions to some limited extent. Still, that's a lot of money. But, megacorps don't value money in the same way that mere corporations or people do. Neither do governments.
I just kinda expect that a "computer" should be capable of running for a few hours at a time, if not longer. Even Windows manages that, most of the time.
There's a nine somewhere in the uptime values here. That nine trails perhaps several trillion zero's.
(Score: 2) by Knowledge Troll on Thursday January 10 2019, @04:30AM
I'm not sure if you were referencing it or not but one of the very early computers if not the one Turing made after Bombe had a predicted MTBF in the scale of single digit hours. They were so desperate they built it anyway.
I don't think anyone's desperate enough to buy the IBM PS/Q where 100ns of computation is enough for anybody.
(Score: 2) by Spamalope on Thursday January 10 2019, @03:59PM
I disagree.
This could be useful for CS departments to develop techniques for taking advantage of what computers like it can do. You have to have useful software tools together with the hardware to make the system useful, and this could help bootstrap the ecosystem while being used as a teaching or research tool.
Orgs with deep pockets that have a business case for the tech might wish to adopt early because of the potential advantage they see. This would help develop their applications in advance of the system being available so they can be a first mover as soon as one is, and they'll know what features it must have to be useful to them.
It is surely a tiny niche item though.