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from the one-year's-work-shrunk-to-7.8-seconds dept.
Scientists from quantum computing company D-Wave have demonstrated that, using a method called quantum annealing, they could simulate some materials up to three million times faster than it would take with corresponding classical methods.
Together with researchers from Google, the scientists set out to measure the speed of simulation in one of D-Wave's quantum annealing processors, and found that performance increased with both simulation size and problem difficulty, to reach a million-fold speedup over what could be achieved with a classical CPU.
The calculation that D-Wave and Google's teams tackled is a real-world problem; in fact, it has already been resolved by the 2016 winners of the Nobel Prize in Physics, Vadim Berezinskii, J. Michael Kosterlitz and David Thouless, who studied the behavior of so-called "exotic magnetism", which occurs in quantum magnetic systems.
[...] In contrast, D-Wave's latest experiment resolved a meaningful problem that scientists are interested in independent of quantum computing. The findings have already attracted the attention of scientists around the world.
Journal Reference:
Andrew D. King, Jack Raymond, Trevor Lanting, et al. Scaling advantage over path-integral Monte Carlo in quantum simulation of geometrically frustrated magnets [open], Nature Communications (DOI: 10.1038/s41467-021-20901-5)
(Score: 1, Redundant) by Anonymous Coward on Monday March 08 2021, @01:53PM (7 children)
We should stop differentiating between quantum computers and classical computers. A computer is a computer is a computer, whether it's quantum, classical or Black.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Monday March 08 2021, @03:55PM
Analog computers, digital computers and quantum computers have very different performance characteristics and processes. In the case of analog computers, they may not even involve a flow of electricity in the actual calculations. And while we're at it, people calculate different from all three. It's helpful to distinguish between the forms of computers in some fashion, this seems as good a way as anything.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Monday March 08 2021, @04:30PM (1 child)
QPU(Quantum Processing unit) card...
(Score: 2) by maxwell demon on Tuesday March 09 2021, @10:14AM
With current technology, you might not be happy with the cooling requirements. ;-)
The Tao of math: The numbers you can count are not the real numbers.
(Score: 2) by Gaaark on Monday March 08 2021, @10:17PM (3 children)
I'm wondering what kind of punch-card to use with a quantum computer...
--- Please remind me if I haven't been civil to you: I'm channeling MDC. ---Gaaark 2.0 ---
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Monday March 08 2021, @11:29PM
A ballot, specifically one with hanging chads.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday March 09 2021, @02:11AM
One with hanging chads.
(Score: 2) by maxwell demon on Tuesday March 09 2021, @10:12AM
Obviously a quantum punch card, where you can have superposition between “there is a hole” and “there is no hole”. But you better be a good typist, as you cannot proofread them; looking at them would collapse their state. :-)
The Tao of math: The numbers you can count are not the real numbers.