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Lockheed Martin pays $10M for D-Wave's Quantum Computer

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Re: Lockheed Martin pays $10M for D-Wave's Quantum Computer

#51

Post by asafira »

papaf wrote: post #27
Xcelerate wrote: post #6

D-Wave's advancements are very interesting to me for a few reasons. The first is that initially many people suspected D-Wave was a scam, because the most successful research efforts in quantum computing used just a few qubits, and D-Wave claimed a massive improvement (something like 128 or 256). Scott Aaronson ( http://www.scottaaronson.com ) was perhaps the most vocal critic. Over the years, the criticism has soften…

Out of interest, when the chemically accurate simulations are made are there any surprises? Or do the estimations that are normally used good enough for most purposes?

D.E. Shaw current is one of the leaders (if not the leader) in molecular dynamics (i.e., studying the motion of the specific atoms in a molecule, or watching the dynamics of a chemical reaction), and it's a really hard problem. Roughly speaking, you have to calculate a constant (but also fairly large) number of operations to calculate the configuration of the molecule(s) for every _femtosecond_ of time. It would be great to see things happen at a tens of microseconds, but that is a LOT of computation.

This is useful becaue it would mean that we could see exactly how reactions take place and perhaps even engineer interesting chemical/biological phenomena. Certain processes in your body depend on proteins moving certain substances or reacting in certain ways, and if we can simulate all that with a computer, we can start to build chemical/biological tools for, for example, fighting certain diseases

Re: Lockheed Martin pays $10M for D-Wave's Quantum Computer

#52

Post by TsiCClawOfLight »

dhimes wrote: post #49
TsiCClawOfLight wrote: post #48

Earlier quoted context omitted.

while I would agree on a small market, that sounds a lot like what was said about the PC, years ago...

I believe that was the point of the joke.

well, sorry I didn't catch it.

Re: Lockheed Martin pays $10M for D-Wave's Quantum Computer

#53

Post by asafira »

jessriedel wrote: post #41
JulianMorrison wrote: post #36

Earlier quoted context omitted.

D-Wave's machines are very different from "regular" quantum computers, and the sort of problems they solve faster than conventional computers are travelling salesman problems and those closely related, eg: "how can I lay out this printed circuit board so the traces don't cross and are as short as possible?"

D-wave's device has been used to solve exactly zero problems faster than a classical computer. Whether the current prototype even harnesses an actual quantum speed-up hasn't been shown.

For the record, this is also true for every quantum computer in existence. What is clear though, is that quantum computers have already solved problems in fewer steps than classical computers.

And to be fair, it's going to take a while to beat current computers. We've had decades to get them faster and faster, and we will need some time because we can perform low level operations nearly as fast and get enough qubits to get to sizes of problems that classical computers have issues with

Re: Lockheed Martin pays $10M for D-Wave's Quantum Computer

#55

Post by asafira »

arianvanp wrote: post #38

So I am in my final year of high school now, and I'm not studying physics next year. The only thing about 'quantum physics' that we had was emission-spectra, and light-interference. Quantum Physics sounds _Really_ interesting though, so I would love if anyone could point me in the right direction with where and how I start learning this stuff. Thanks:D

This is great to see! Of course, this stuff isn't easy to jump into, but I recommend checking out some of the free online courses for something good. Coursera once had a quantum computer course (!) taught by a pretty famous guy in the field! It didn't have quantum mechanics as a prerequisite, either!

Re: Lockheed Martin pays $10M for D-Wave's Quantum Computer

#56

Post by Xcelerate »

hagy wrote: post #46
papaf wrote: post #30

Earlier quoted context omitted.

My understanding of these things is that the dynamics of the real world are not easily measurable at this scale. An alternative is to simulate using using packages such as Gromacs: http://www.gromacs.org/About_Gromacs These packages are truly incredible but use relatively crude approximations and are in wide use. It is possible to get a decent paper out that uses a simulation as evidence to support an idea. The aim o…

You bring up an excellent point, papaf. The accuracy of the empirical force fields used in molecular dynamics simulation engines (such as Gromacs) is a hotly debated topic. Even without quantum computing the issue can be addressed with conventional computers that perform quantum mechanical calculations on interacting molecular fragments. The forces calculated from quantum mechanics can then be compared with those cal…

Nice to see another GT person on HN! (Did my undergrad there.) Have you worked with Dr. Sherrill? It's funny you mention him; I was actually reading one of his presentations on electron-electron correlation last night.

Re: Lockheed Martin pays $10M for D-Wave's Quantum Computer

#58

Post by jessriedel »

asafira wrote: post #53
jessriedel wrote: post #41

Earlier quoted context omitted.

D-wave's device has been used to solve exactly zero problems faster than a classical computer. Whether the current prototype even harnesses an actual quantum speed-up hasn't been shown.

For the record, this is also true for every quantum computer in existence. What is clear though, is that quantum computers have already solved problems in fewer steps than classical computers. And to be fair, it's going to take a while to beat current computers. We've had decades to get them faster and faster, and we will need some time because we can perform low level operations nearly as fast and get enough qubits…

> For the record, this is also true for every quantum computer in existence.

Yes, I'm well aware. The difference from D-wave is that the labs at IBM, UCSB, and Yale haven't claimed they've built a quantum computer (mostly).

> What is clear though, is that quantum computers have already solved problems in fewer steps than classical computers.

This is statement is false and probably not even interpretable in a sensible way. See, for instance, my esteemed colleagues on why some labs' claims to have factored small numbers like 15 are bogus:

http://arxiv.org/abs/1301.7007

> And to be fair, it's going to take a while to beat current computers. We've had decades to get them faster and faster, and we will need some time because we can perform low level operations nearly as fast and get enough qubits to get to sizes of problems that classical computers have issues with

Although it will take a while, it will probably not be because classical computers are so great. I could be wrong (I'm no expert and there could always be scaling surprises), but I'm willing to bet it takes us longer until we perform the first quantum computation that can't be done by hand than between that time and the time when we perform a computation that can't be done with a classical computer.

The short version is that you're mistaken about how research in quantum computers has been progressing. There have been fantastic successes and advances, but they cannot be measured by "number of qubits" or "difficulty of computations done". There simply haven't been any real computation performed. You should think of researchers at the stage of still trying to get the first transistor to work, not the Moore's-law stage of trying to cram the 2^Nth transistor into the silicon.

Re: Lockheed Martin pays $10M for D-Wave's Quantum Computer

#60

Post by hagy »

Xcelerate wrote: post #56
hagy wrote: post #46

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You bring up an excellent point, papaf. The accuracy of the empirical force fields used in molecular dynamics simulation engines (such as Gromacs) is a hotly debated topic. Even without quantum computing the issue can be addressed with conventional computers that perform quantum mechanical calculations on interacting molecular fragments. The forces calculated from quantum mechanics can then be compared with those cal…

Nice to see another GT person on HN! (Did my undergrad there.) Have you worked with Dr. Sherrill? It's funny you mention him; I was actually reading one of his presentations on electron-electron correlation last night.

Cool. I'm a grad student in another chemistry theory group. Dr. Sherrill definitely has the best notes on electronic structure calculations.
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