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Submitted via IRC for FatPhil.
In the centre of a cold tiled room sits a monolithic glass cube. Inside, suspended from its upper ceiling, hangs a mercurial cylinder reflecting its surrounds like a monochrome kaleidoscope.
The scene is unmistakably sci-fi, but this dazzling object is not an extraterrestrial that has arrived unannounced, but an earthborn quantum computer, produced by the ever-enduring IBM and dubbed 'Q System One'.
IBM took the wraps off its new "integrated universal approximate" quantum system at CES last night, which Big Blue says is the world's first designed for enterprise and academic use.
Businesses and academics won't be able to (technically) get their hands on the new system however, as IBM will be keeping Q System One tucked away, leasing access only via IBM cloud.
Other quantum companies offer cloud access to their systems, a trend started by IBM several years ago. But by enlisting the company that makes display cases for the Mona Lisa and the crown jewels, IBM evidently thinks one way to attract a critical mass to its quantum cloud service is to produce the most attractive quantum block, on the block.
Source: https://techerati.com/news-hub/ibms-new-quantum-computer-will-have-you-drooling/
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday May 08 2019, @04:28AM
approximate
Raising the Pentium bug to a new level...
Let's just call it the "more or less"
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday May 08 2019, @04:33AM (2 children)
Cray had their walk-in letter C with a bench running around it. Thinking Machines had their black monoliths.
I suppose it matters.
(Score: 2) by FatPhil on Wednesday May 08 2019, @05:16AM
Great minds discuss ideas; average minds discuss events; small minds discuss people; the smallest discuss themselves
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday May 08 2019, @05:47PM
Came here to say the same thing, getting a stylist[1] involved with computer cabinets isn't new.
[1] In Detroit, the artists that used to be called stylists are now called "designers". I'm never sure what to call the designers now, maybe they have to be called "engineering designers" to make the distinction?
(Score: 2) by maxwell demon on Wednesday May 08 2019, @05:27AM (6 children)
What I can't find anywhere in that article: How (other than in optics) does this new quantum computer differ from the previous ones? Does it have more qubits? Does it have less decoherence? Does it use a different technology for its qubits?
It's like talking about a new server, and only saying how great it looks.
The Tao of math: The numbers you can count are not the real numbers.
(Score: 3, Interesting) by takyon on Wednesday May 08 2019, @06:01AM (5 children)
I'll start drooling when room temperature quantum computers are included in desktops and on SoCs.
Supposedly, quantum computers can be used for machine learning, which is something that is already being added to mobile SoCs. And if qubits could scale down in size to near modern transistor size while not requiring special cooling you could fit millions of qubits onto even a smartwatch SoC.
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(Score: 2) by fyngyrz on Wednesday May 08 2019, @01:29PM (4 children)
I'll start drooling, or at least paying serious attention, when someone does something practically useful with a quantum computing system that can't be done with a Von Neumann architecture computing system.
The promises are many; the realization of them, as yet, absent entirely.
From the noise rising from the people trying to achieve this, I have gathered that one of the likely goals for these machines is breaking encryption and/or digital locking systems. If that turns out to be the case, I fully expect it to be used by the government to bypass as many such roadblocks as are made possible.
Hopefully that won't be all we get out of this technology; if so, it'll be sort of like the atomic bomb. A technological miracle, but generally the world will be overall much worse for its development and deployment. At least in countries that [claim to] value personal liberty, privacy, and freedom of things speechlike.
--
Spawn: Mom, dad... can I sleep with you? I'm scared.
Me: No, we can't risk the monster following you into
our bedroom and killing us. Go back to bed.
(Score: 3, Informative) by maxwell demon on Wednesday May 08 2019, @01:55PM (2 children)
Apart from cryptography, the main expectations are in simulating quantum systems, such as proteins and substances. That is, unless you are a researcher, you might never have a direct use for a quantum computer, but indirectly profit from them through new developments, which might include things like room temperature superconductors or the cure for cancer.
But then, when the first computer was built, probably no one would have predicted the wide range of uses they have today.
The Tao of math: The numbers you can count are not the real numbers.
(Score: 2) by fyngyrz on Wednesday May 08 2019, @02:02PM
+1 informative from me
(Score: 2) by takyon on Wednesday May 08 2019, @05:12PM
Simulating real world systems seems like it could be translated into realism in gaming/physics engines. That's a consumer application. For a smaller group of people, it could mean more advanced versions of things like Folding@Home. Simulate stuff like chemical reactions on the desktop.
Quantum machine learning is a thing: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Quantum_machine_learning [wikipedia.org]
https://singularityhub.com/2019/03/17/finally-proof-that-quantum-computing-can-boost-machine-learning/ [singularityhub.com]
So you could see quantum processing units being stuffed into phones or robots. Or maybe it will be used for deepfakes.
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(Score: 2) by sjames on Wednesday May 08 2019, @09:01PM
THIS, so much THIS.
The current quantum computers are far more interesting from the standpoint of basic research into quantum computing than they are as a practical tool for anything. To the point that putting one online reads more like a publicity stunt than a serious offering.
They MIGHT one day become practical tools but not today.
(Score: 1) by Rupert Pupnick on Wednesday May 08 2019, @11:52AM
I can’t find anything in the article that talks about what distinguishes this quantum computer from any of others— aside from the completely impractical and expensive way in which it is packaged.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday May 08 2019, @12:18PM
If you can't make it useful, then no problem we'll put it in a a fancy box.