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posted by Fnord666 on Thursday January 26 2017, @08:47AM   Printer-friendly
from the not-quebert dept.

D-Wave has announced the availability of the D-Wave 2000Q, a 2,000-"qubit" quantum annealer that it says can be used for optimization problems and machine learning. The first customer of the new machine will be Temporal Defense Systems Inc., a "cutting-edge cyber security firm". Aside from the boost in qubits, D-Wave is also touting faster annealing time and an "anneal offsets control feature":

Back in fall, last year, D-Wave announced its new 2,000-qubit quantum annealing computer that was up to 1,000 times faster than its previous 1,000-qubit computer. The company officially launched the new computer, as well as announced its first customer, Temporal Defense Systems, which is a cybersecurity company trying to use quantum computation to improve its security solutions.

"The combined power of the TDS / D-Wave quantum cyber solution will revolutionize secure communications, protect against insider threats, and assist in the identification of cyber adversaries and attack patterns," said James Burrell, TDS Chief Technology Officer and former FBI Deputy Assistant Director. "Combining the unique computational capabilities of a quantum computer with the most advanced cyber security technologies will deliver the highest level of security, focused on both prevention and attribution of cyber attacks," he explained.

The cost? $15 million.

Nature contends that some researchers have found uses for D-Wave's annealers, but there is a need for greater connectivity between the qubits.

D-Wave Press release, and new white papers.


Original Submission

Related Stories

Trees Are the New Cats: D-Wave Used for Machine Vision 19 comments

A D-Wave computer has been used for a machine learning vision task (treat references in the article to "quantum computer" or "qubits" with a qubit of salt):

Scientists have trained a quantum computer to recognize trees. That may not seem like a big deal, but the result means that researchers are a step closer to using such computers for complicated machine learning problems like pattern recognition and computer vision. The team used a D-Wave 2X computer, an advanced model from the Burnaby, Canada–based company that created the world's first quantum computer in 2007.

[...] In the new study, physicist Edward Boyda of St. Mary's College of California in Moraga and colleagues fed hundreds of NASA satellite images of California into the D-Wave 2X processor, which contains 1152 qubits. The researchers asked the computer to consider dozens of features—hue, saturation, even light reflectance—to determine whether clumps of pixels were trees as opposed to roads, buildings, or rivers. They then told the computer whether its classifications were right or wrong so that the computer could learn from its mistakes, tweaking the formula it uses to determine whether something is a tree. "Classification is a tricky problem; there are short trees, tall trees, trees next to each other, next to buildings—all sorts of combinations," says team member Ramakrishna Nemani, an earth scientist at NASA's Advanced Supercomputer Division in Mountain View, California.

After it was trained, the D-Wave was 90% accurate in recognizing trees [open, DOI: 10.1371/journal.pone.0172505] [DX] in aerial photographs of Mill Valley, California, the team reports in PLOS ONE. It was only slightly more accurate than a conventional computer would have been at the same problem. But the results demonstrate how scientists can program quantum computers to "look" at and analyze images, and opens up the possibility of using them to solve other complex problems that require heavy data crunching.

The 1,152 "qubit" system is not D-Wave's latest product.


Original Submission

Google and NASA Still on Board With D-Wave, Upgrade to 2048 "Qubits" 16 comments

Google, NASA, and Universities Space Research Association (USRA) run a joint research lab called the Quantum Artificial Intelligence Laboratory (QuAIL). That partnership has used a 512-qubit D-Wave Two quantum annealer, upgraded to the 1,152-qubit D-Wave 2x, and is now upgrading again to the company's latest D-Wave 2000Q system (2048 qubits):

Google, NASA, and the USRA are now buying the latest generation D-Wave quantum computer, as well, to further explore its potential. The new D-Wave 2000Q is not just up to 1,000 times faster than the previous generation, but it also has better controls, allowing QuAIL to tweak it for its algorithms. QuAIL is now looking at developing machine learning algorithms that can take advantage of D-Wave's latest quantum annealing computer.

[...] D-Wave also announced that it will help the Virginia Polytechnic Institute and State University (Virginia Tech) establish a quantum computing research center for defense and intelligence purposes. D-Wave's role will be to aid the Virginia Tech staff in developing applications and software tools for its quantum annealing computers. [...] Because D-Wave is not a universal quantum computer, like what Google and IBM plan to build over the next few years, it is not expected to be useful in cracking encryption. Virginia Tech plans to also focus on developing machine learning algorithms for the D-Wave computers.

Previously: Trees Are the New Cats: D-Wave Used for Machine Vision


Original Submission

D-Wave Improves 2000Q Quantum Annealer, Claims 25x Performance Increase 3 comments

D-Wave Unveils Higher-Performance 2000Q Quantum Processor

D-Wave today debuted a new processor for quantum computing. With lower noise (noise in quantum computing is also known as quantum decoherence or error rate), the D-Wave 2000Q processor boasts up to 25 times better performance than its predecessor. It takes advantage of D-Wave's new and improved quantum computing platform announced earlier this year and is available now.

In February, D-Wave announced a new quantum annealing platform with a new qubit topology, lower noise, a higher number of qubits (for future D-Wave quantum computers), as well as hybrid software and tools that the company said it would deliver by mid-2020.

[...] D-Wave said that its customers have developed more than 150 quantum applications for the D-Wave quantum computer in areas such as airline scheduling, election modeling, quantum chemistry simulation, automotive design, preventative healthcare and logistics. Some have also developed new tools to improve the application development process.

Previously: D-Wave Announces Availability of a ~2,000 Qubit Machine and a Customer for It
Google and NASA Still on Board With D-Wave, Upgrade to 2048 "Qubits"
NASA and Google Collaboration Turns on D-Wave 2000Q System


Original Submission

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  • (Score: 3, Interesting) by PiMuNu on Thursday January 26 2017, @02:00PM

    by PiMuNu (3823) on Thursday January 26 2017, @02:00PM (#458910)

    ... I notice on their website that they are hiring. Anyone with experience of optimisation routines/neural networks/etc?

  • (Score: 1, Insightful) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday January 26 2017, @02:18PM

    by Anonymous Coward on Thursday January 26 2017, @02:18PM (#458918)

    They still don't tell much about what they have.

    http://www.dwavesys.com/sites/default/files/D-Wave%202000Q%20Tech%20Collateral_0117F.pdf [dwavesys.com]

    Their whitepaper is mostly about how they built the machine and only this on what it can do.

    " It harnesses the natural tendency of real-world quantum
    systems to find low-energy states. If an optimization problem is analogous to a
    landscape of peaks and valleys, for instance, each coordinate represents a possible
    solution and its elevation represents its energy. The best solution is that with
    the lowest energy corresponding to the lowest point in the deepest valley in the
    landscape."

    There are 2 areas of concern.

    First:
    For code cracking, this is not encouraging. An optimization problem usually has hills to climb to a peak.
    A good code has no hills. Only a single spike on a flat plateau of random noise.
    Their marketing gives no clue how they will perform on this sort of problem.

    Second:
    A good code is rich in interconnections where the state of each Qbit constrains the state of a few other somewhat randomly chosen Qbits.
    They provide few clues as to what connectivity and constraints between Q-bits are possible.

    It's been my experience that when seeing marketing material that provides such little detail of what is actually being sold, the deal is usually not good.
    This sort of mystical marketing experience is used by all sorts of folks to sell products with less than outstanding features.
    Kind of a pay no attention to the man behind the curtain story.

    D-wave needs to publish a simple whitepaper showing what they have.
    Until they do, I'm keeping them in the mystical marketing category.

    • (Score: 3, Touché) by bzipitidoo on Thursday January 26 2017, @04:38PM

      by bzipitidoo (4388) on Thursday January 26 2017, @04:38PM (#458981) Journal

      D-wave has been criticized in the past for hype and vaporware. I recall hearing that their first machine supposedly worked but it was so slow that simulating the processes on a classic computer was faster. Which immediately raised the question of whether they had resorted to the same technique themselves.

      Researchers have struggled to create quantum computers with more than 3 or 5 qubits, and these guys say they can do thousands? So, why don't they break RSA encryption? Show the world they really have figured out how to build a serious quantum computer. Whip out Shor's algorithm, and employ their computer to crack a big RSA key. Couple thousand qubits ought to be able to break a 1024 bit RSA key. Oh, they haven't done that? What exactly have they done? Quantum annealing. Thing is, so far quantum annealing does not appear to be any faster than simulated annealing with classic computers.

      • (Score: 3, Informative) by FatPhil on Thursday January 26 2017, @05:39PM

        by FatPhil (863) <pc-soylentNO@SPAMasdf.fi> on Thursday January 26 2017, @05:39PM (#459017) Homepage
        This is not a Universal Quantum Computer, it can't run arbitrary quantum algorithms. It can only tackle optimisation and closely related problems. They've never claimed otherwise. They use quantum techniques to perform the annealing. It is computation, it's quantum, it is quantum computation.
        --
        Great minds discuss ideas; average minds discuss events; small minds discuss people; the smallest discuss themselves
        • (Score: 2) by bob_super on Thursday January 26 2017, @06:05PM

          by bob_super (1357) on Thursday January 26 2017, @06:05PM (#459024)

          Honest questions:
            - What does it "optimize" for your $15M?
            - How does one actually program a thousand-Qbit machine?

          • (Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday January 26 2017, @07:30PM

            by Anonymous Coward on Thursday January 26 2017, @07:30PM (#459077)

            With QBert of course!
            http://store.steampowered.com/app/285960/ [steampowered.com]

          • (Score: 2) by FatPhil on Thursday January 26 2017, @08:32PM

            by FatPhil (863) <pc-soylentNO@SPAMasdf.fi> on Thursday January 26 2017, @08:32PM (#459112) Homepage
            Why not ask one of their clients? Such as Google: https://research.googleblog.com/2015/12/when-can-quantum-annealing-win.html
            --
            Great minds discuss ideas; average minds discuss events; small minds discuss people; the smallest discuss themselves
        • (Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday January 26 2017, @08:21PM

          by Anonymous Coward on Thursday January 26 2017, @08:21PM (#459105)

          Sure, if you gray out the definition until it fits. Of course, how that differs from any other computer at that point becomes a lot more vague IMHO.