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The quantum computing bubble

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Re: The quantum computing bubble

#111

Post by forrest2 »

sicp-enjoyer wrote: post #97
cerol wrote: post #90

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> but I can't help think this is just a terrible way to invest Picking a company to invest in only half the job, choosing how much to invest is the other half. It's a terrible way to invest if you put all your money into it. QC "changing the world" is a tail-end event. You allocate according to the risk.

I am not talking about investing in companies. I am talking about how these companies invest their R&D capital in projects. > QC "changing the world" is a tail-end event. You allocate according to the risk But, nobody has a clear idea how it's a risk. They just invest because others invest. You might as well allocate some capital to protect against giant aggressive pigs ruining the southern US. To put it another way.…

> I am not talking about investing in companies. I am talking about how these companies invest their R&D capital in projects.

Some food for thought:

These companies do have economies of scale on their side for internal tech investments. Things like this are a cheaper bet for them than for anyone else. Investments that seem irrational in a vacuum (aka for anybody else) can be rational for these specialized parties.

They already have hardware specialists, contacts / relationships, software expertise, idle bodies, etc.

Re: The quantum computing bubble

#112

Post by viraj_shah »

bottled_poe wrote: post #63
cerol wrote: post #39

This is how I think about it. It's insurance money. If you're a manager of a big company like IBM, Microsoft or Google, you have to align your current product portfolio and future portfolio in such a way that shows your investor that your company will keep growing, even if your current products are stagnant. You can surely say Quantum computing won't do much in next 5 years. But what about 10 years? 20 years? 30 year…

Ah, the quantum ROI, where we affect the return by attempting to measure it.

This made me laugh, thank you!

Re: The quantum computing bubble

#113

Post by oldgradstudent »

dr_dshiv wrote: post #103
DubiousPusher wrote: post #68

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's honestly just a really bad analogy. Evacuated tubes were not pursued en-masse as an end unto themselves the way quantum computing is being pursued. Their development was as a side fascination for a handful of researchers or they were advanced because they were directly applicable to some goal of a researcher with maybe some mild tweaking. They were not a moonshot and they developed along similar lines as most us…

To clarify the analogy: Quantum computing with todays technology :: Classical computing in the early era of vacuum tubes The point of the analogy is to communicate that we are at an early stage of development. Also, I just like vacuum tubes.

> Quantum computing with todays technology :: Classical computing in the early era of vacuum tubes

There's still a big difference.

Even in the earliest era of computing with vacuum tubes (and even before), they were building machines that produced useful results: artillery tables, H-bomb simulations, cryptanalysis, etc.

Most things these machines were used for were simply impractical without them.

There's nothing even remotely analogous with quantum computing.

Re: The quantum computing bubble

#114

Post by marcosdumay »

sweezyjeezy wrote: post #110
marcosdumay wrote: post #88

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That's quite similar to claiming that quantum computers won't change anything for RSA cryptography, because we never had any proof that integer factorization can't be done in polynomial time on a classical computer. It's true, in some sense.

The paper also shows that the proposed QC strategy for calculating energy levels - where you start with a guess and then optimise - may not lead to exponential speedup on a large class of important chemicals, because just coming up with an appropriate initial guess has no polynomial time algorithm at present. So it's not clear for what class of chemicals this would even theoretically become a tractable calculation.

Yes, that applies to the chemicals that we currently have very good heuristics to guide the optimization, in a process that is usually validated empirically afterwards because of it's not perfect reliability.

At the same time, it doesn't go to lengths to discuss how the heuristics needed for the quantum computer are much more general and self-validating (if it converges, it converges).

But then, nobody knows if the classical algorithms will improve enough so that when we actually get quantum computers they will still be needed. That's the article's point... What is not different from the RSA one from my post.

Re: The quantum computing bubble

#115

Post by dr_dshiv »

oldgradstudent wrote: post #113
dr_dshiv wrote: post #103

Earlier quoted context omitted.

To clarify the analogy: Quantum computing with todays technology :: Classical computing in the early era of vacuum tubes The point of the analogy is to communicate that we are at an early stage of development. Also, I just like vacuum tubes.

> Quantum computing with todays technology :: Classical computing in the early era of vacuum tubes There's still a big difference. Even in the earliest era of computing with vacuum tubes (and even before), they were building machines that produced useful results: artillery tables, H-bomb simulations, cryptanalysis, etc. Most things these machines were used for were simply impractical without them. There's nothing eve…

Well, to be fair: quantum computers can do practical computations—but because “normal” computers are so unbelievably well developed, it is not practical to do them with quantum computers.

The earliest era of computing was mechanical. The mechanism of thermionic transmission (vacuum tubes) was invented by Edison in 1883. The Colossus computer, with thousands of vacuum tubes, was the first practical use of vacuum tubes for computation, in 1943. We cannot yet assemble thousands of qubits together. Once we can do that, we will be able to perform many useful functions. However, even with thousands of qubits, many of the functions will be more practical to run on a classical computer (because classical computers are amazing and continue to develop).

Re: The quantum computing bubble

#116

Post by dr_dshiv »

wfn wrote: post #37
dr_dshiv wrote: post #25

I have a fair amount of experience in this space. It’s like, at a vacuum tube era, at best. There is a definite opportunity for advancement, but it is still extremely early. We are building user interfaces that make it easier to “play around” with quantum computing phenomena—especially with music and art—with the idea that our aesthetic sensibilities may help drive discovery.

Could you share some links to your work / research re: interfaces with focus on art? I'd be very interested to check it out. https://quantumdelta.nl/ is some kind of hub but landing pages offer too much hype and too little content :) thank you.

I will have material to share in about a month!

Re: The quantum computing bubble

#117

Post by DubiousPusher »

YetAnotherNick wrote: post #91
DubiousPusher wrote: post #68

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's honestly just a really bad analogy. Evacuated tubes were not pursued en-masse as an end unto themselves the way quantum computing is being pursued. Their development was as a side fascination for a handful of researchers or they were advanced because they were directly applicable to some goal of a researcher with maybe some mild tweaking. They were not a moonshot and they developed along similar lines as most us…

> It's honestly just a really bad analogy. Evacuated tubes were not pursued en-masse as an end unto themselves the way quantum computing is being pursued No, it's not. The Vacuum tube was sold for commercial and industrial use starting from 1915 for rectification. And most of the research spending went into it after it shown some promise from commercial application. Not arguing though if pursuing something just for r…

> just saying vacuum tube research was nothing like quantum computer research.

That's what I'm saying. Vacuum tubes had various evacuated tubes as their precursors which had uses in experimentation and industrial applications. This led to a step by step development process with continuous subsequent innovations building on each other. Quantum computing on the other hand is kind of an all or nothing proposition with many problems that must be solved which only produce value when functioning as part of the whole.

I don't think the development of classical computing is a good analogy either as the shared memory computer had various electromechanical precursors that had utility all of their own.

Re: The quantum computing bubble

#118

Post by DubiousPusher »

dr_dshiv wrote: post #115
oldgradstudent wrote: post #113

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Quantum computing with todays technology :: Classical computing in the early era of vacuum tubes There's still a big difference. Even in the earliest era of computing with vacuum tubes (and even before), they were building machines that produced useful results: artillery tables, H-bomb simulations, cryptanalysis, etc. Most things these machines were used for were simply impractical without them. There's nothing eve…

Well, to be fair: quantum computers can do practical computations—but because “normal” computers are so unbelievably well developed, it is not practical to do them with quantum computers. The earliest era of computing was mechanical. The mechanism of thermionic transmission (vacuum tubes) was invented by Edison in 1883. The Colossus computer, with thousands of vacuum tubes, was the first practical use of vacuum tubes…

> The Colossus computer, with thousands of vacuum tubes, was the first practical use for computation, in 1943.

I don't think this is true. Perhaps the Colossus is what we would call the "first computer" by some definition but electro mechanical computing devices built for specific purposes preceded it. There wasn't a 60 year gap of investment with no practical application of classical computing.

Classical computing was built up over time with practical utilith along the wya. The vacuum tube eventually became a useful component of it.

Re: The quantum computing bubble

#119

Post by awoimbee »

denton-scratch wrote: post #84
krastanov wrote: post #64

Earlier quoted context omitted.

1. Seems a bit unfair to say it has been developed since the 80's. In 80's a couple of people (e.g. Feynman) noticed that if you have a quantum simulator, you can simulate chemistry in a way that a classical computer is seemingly incapable of. But the transmon (one of the first possibly viable implementations of a qubit) was not developed until the 00's and complete control of some of these systems (e.g. transmon cou…

> e.g. Liquid Crystal displays Liquid crystal displays were commercially viable 10 years before they became commercially available. Source: my dad worked for a company that made display tubes for CRT manufacturers all over the world. He told me back in the seventies that they knew how to make TVs you could hang on the wall like a picture, but weren't making them because they were camping on a lucrative market.

Early (00s) LCDs sucked, I can't even imagine how much a 70's LCD would suck compared to a CRT.

Re: The quantum computing bubble

#120

Post by [deleted] »

awoimbee wrote: post #119
denton-scratch wrote: post #84

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> e.g. Liquid Crystal displays Liquid crystal displays were commercially viable 10 years before they became commercially available. Source: my dad worked for a company that made display tubes for CRT manufacturers all over the world. He told me back in the seventies that they knew how to make TVs you could hang on the wall like a picture, but weren't making them because they were camping on a lucrative market.

Early (00s) LCDs sucked, I can't even imagine how much a 70's LCD would suck compared to a CRT.

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