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posted by LaminatorX on Thursday March 06 2014, @05:30AM   Printer-friendly
from the CQluaasnstiucmal-Superposition dept.

AnonTechie points us towards updates on the evaluation of D-Wave's annealing devices.

From Phys.org's reporting on the latest tests:

With cutting-edge technology, sometimes the first step scientists face is just making sure it actually works as intended. The USC Viterbi School of Engineering is home to the USC-Lockheed Martin Quantum Computing Center (QCC), a super-cooled, magnetically shielded facility specially built to house the first commercially available quantum computing processors; devices so advanced that there are only two in use outside the Canadian lab where they were built. The first one went to USC and Lockheed Martin, and the second to NASA and Google. Since USC's facility opened in October 2011, a key task for researchers has been to determine whether D-Wave processors operate as hoped using the special laws of quantum mechanics to offer potentially higher-speed processing, instead of operating in a classical, traditional way.

(Background at Time, for those unfamiliar.)

 
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  • (Score: 2, Insightful) by Wodan on Thursday March 06 2014, @09:48AM

    by Wodan (517) on Thursday March 06 2014, @09:48AM (#11852)

    From earlier news on these computers they're no faster than a classical computer doing the same job at a fraction of the price.

    Proper quantum computers (as in the ones that can factor large numbers) are supposed to do some things a lot faster (D-Wave never claimed to make one of those, fair enough, but I don't see the point of their product).

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  • (Score: 1) by bill_mcgonigle on Thursday March 06 2014, @02:40PM

    by bill_mcgonigle (1105) on Thursday March 06 2014, @02:40PM (#11951)

    they're no faster than a classical computer

    From what I've read earlier, Google and Lockheed don't really care about the speed of the 512-bit unit. They're looking to get experience using the technology so that when a 4K unit is available, they can re-run their existing code and solve problems faster than a room full of supercomputers.

    • (Score: 1) by tibman on Friday March 07 2014, @01:52AM

      by tibman (134) Subscriber Badge on Friday March 07 2014, @01:52AM (#12390)

      Don't get too excited. A single core of a mid-grade desktop processor can outperform D-Wave (one and two). Imagine what $10mil could buy you instead of a D-Wave and i think you can understand people's hesitation. I'm not saying it doesn't have promise or isn't quantum. I'm just saying that it is a HUGE waste of money for practical use. I can completely see academic use though where you can poke and prod the thing to get something non-classical out of it.

      http://www.archduke.org/stuff/d-wave-comment-on-co mparison-with-classical-computers/ [archduke.org]

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  • (Score: 1) by ngarrang on Thursday March 06 2014, @05:20PM

    by ngarrang (896) on Thursday March 06 2014, @05:20PM (#12060) Journal

    Do not underestimate the value of mind-share. If D-Wave can be touted as the first company to successfully harness q-computing for real-world tasks, that is a huge boon for future investment and PR. The first to market is not always the most successful, as history has shown us, but it can still lead to a lot of early success and potentially a rich buy-out for the owners.