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Google Buys a Quantum Computer

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Re: Google Buys a Quantum Computer

#51

Post by gaze »

greenmountin wrote: post #25
i_am_dead wrote: post #9

Earlier quoted context omitted.

D-Wave does have a factoring algorithm. See the comments from D-Wave here: http://dwave.wordpress.com/2011/05/11/learning-to-program-th... "We do have a factoring algorithm that I’m going to do a series of blog posts on"

This is absurd. That's a comment on a blog post, proposing a bombastic title, "Better than Shor". I'm pretty sure if they could get anywhere near Shor using their architecture they'd get more than a sympathy Nature paper. The truth is, D-Wave has done nothing to foster the coherence of their "qubits", and so they have built a very expensive, superconducting, classical computer. There is no quantum trick, actually. Yo…

Quantum annealing is a real thing. Probably could make for some pretty fast optimization. What's the problem?

Re: Google Buys a Quantum Computer

#52

Post by [deleted] »

kolbe wrote: post #38

While I loathe Ayn Rand I have to give her some credit for capturing accurate human behavior in Atlas Shrugged: the D-Wave skeptics seem to behave exactly like Rearden's detractors. But in the face of it all, D-Wave keeps plugging along, landing larger contracts, and hitting more impressive benchmarks. They may fizzle out in a flame of failure in the end, but as it stands, they seem like they're doing a great job.

[deleted]

Re: Google Buys a Quantum Computer

#53

Post by d4vlx »

lmm wrote: post #3

Have D-Wave demonstrated any actual quantum behaviour yet? I had them down as a scam prior to the google involvement; now I'm not sure what to think.

I am still skeptical for reasons spelled out here:

http://www.scottaaronson.com/blog/?p=954

It is unclear if they are actually taking advantage or quantum effects or if similar machines could be built using much simpler and cheaper classical effects.

Re: Google Buys a Quantum Computer

#54

Post by varelse »

michaelochurch wrote: post #23

Whenever I hear about Google doing some genuine technology, it just makes me a million times more fucking angry to compare what Google must be like if you're a Real Googler (machine learning projects, basic research, quantum computing, meaningful work) to the misery that the other 90% endure. I feel like this should be much more of an HR problem than it seems to be. Whenever it comes out that Google's real members ar…

Ex-googler: While I think open allocation is toxic and the reason I left, the best way to get into one of these projects is to get Acquihired into it.

That said, obviously, many of those there are more than willing to do the dull work in exchange for the very nice perks and compensation. I just wasn't one of those people.

Re: Google Buys a Quantum Computer

#55

Post by foobarqux »

cdibona wrote: post #48
lmm wrote: post #3

Have D-Wave demonstrated any actual quantum behaviour yet? I had them down as a scam prior to the google involvement; now I'm not sure what to think.

Here's a paper that we felt answered this question: http://arxiv.org/abs/1304.4595 Like you, I was worried about the snake oil aspects of qc, but ...well, I got over it when I looked into the science of the d-wave implementation and talked with folks like Sergio. Please note,we're talking about a quantum annealer here, not a full on qc and we're okay with that :-) Also, disclaimer: I'm a googler who worked with our q…

Here's a great post summarizing that paper:

http://www.scottaaronson.com/blog/?p=1400

Re: Google Buys a Quantum Computer

#56

Post by throwaway1980 »

mike_ivanov wrote: post #47

"Quantum" is a bit of buzzword in a sense that people understand it in a very narrow sense. D-Wave's system is NOT a "classical" qubit-based quantum computer. What it does is essentially global optimization of multimode functions using quantum effects.

I like this idea of a classical quantum computer. Do we also have CC, QC, and QQ computers?

Re: Google Buys a Quantum Computer

#57

Post by michaelochurch »

varelse wrote: post #54
michaelochurch wrote: post #23

Whenever I hear about Google doing some genuine technology, it just makes me a million times more fucking angry to compare what Google must be like if you're a Real Googler (machine learning projects, basic research, quantum computing, meaningful work) to the misery that the other 90% endure. I feel like this should be much more of an HR problem than it seems to be. Whenever it comes out that Google's real members ar…

Ex-googler: While I think open allocation is toxic and the reason I left, the best way to get into one of these projects is to get Acquihired into it. That said, obviously, many of those there are more than willing to do the dull work in exchange for the very nice perks and compensation. I just wasn't one of those people.

Ex-googler: While I think open allocation is toxic and the reason I left

I think you mean "closed allocation".

the best way to get into one of these projects is to get Acquihired into it.

Isn't that fucked up? What does it say about a company when it can't trust the people who've been there for years to do any of the real work and it, instead, buys mediocre talent at a panic price (typically $3-6 million per head) on the acq-hire market?

Re: Google Buys a Quantum Computer

#58

Post by [deleted] »

foobarqux wrote: post #55
cdibona wrote: post #48

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Here's a paper that we felt answered this question: http://arxiv.org/abs/1304.4595 Like you, I was worried about the snake oil aspects of qc, but ...well, I got over it when I looked into the science of the d-wave implementation and talked with folks like Sergio. Please note,we're talking about a quantum annealer here, not a full on qc and we're okay with that :-) Also, disclaimer: I'm a googler who worked with our q…

Here's a great post summarizing that paper: http://www.scottaaronson.com/blog/?p=1400

[deleted]

Re: Google Buys a Quantum Computer

#59

Post by pfedor »

greenmountin wrote: post #25
i_am_dead wrote: post #9

Earlier quoted context omitted.

D-Wave does have a factoring algorithm. See the comments from D-Wave here: http://dwave.wordpress.com/2011/05/11/learning-to-program-th... "We do have a factoring algorithm that I’m going to do a series of blog posts on"

This is absurd. That's a comment on a blog post, proposing a bombastic title, "Better than Shor". I'm pretty sure if they could get anywhere near Shor using their architecture they'd get more than a sympathy Nature paper. The truth is, D-Wave has done nothing to foster the coherence of their "qubits", and so they have built a very expensive, superconducting, classical computer. There is no quantum trick, actually. Yo…

The truth is, D-Wave has done nothing to foster the coherence of their "qubits", and so they have built a very expensive, superconducting, classical computer. There is no quantum trick, actually.

Scott Aaronson, the self-described "Chief D-Wave Skeptic", disagrees with you:

Now, I’d say, D-Wave finally has cleared the evidence-for-entanglement bar—and, while they’re not the first to do so with superconducting qubits, they’re certainly the first to do so with so many superconducting qubits. So I congratulate D-Wave on this accomplishment. If this had been advertised from the start as a scientific research project—”of course we’re a long way from QC being practical— —but we’ve shown experimentally that can entangle 100 superconducting qubits with controllable couplings”—my reaction would’ve been, “cool!” -- http://www.scottaaronson.com/blog/?p=1400

Re: Google Buys a Quantum Computer

#60

Post by JoeAltmaier »

carlob wrote: post #10

Recently I read an article [1] about this, and it seems that D-Wave has a large advantage in optimization problems that pop up often in machine learning. I think this is a lot less esoteric than it sounds: a company develops a computer that is a lot faster at optimizing using a quantum trick, we do classical machine learning faster. I'm pretty certain they're not doing anything qualitatively different than before. No…

But their demo software is to solve the traveling salesman problem - with 4 nodes. I can do that on paper. If the bloody thing works, why not show us how to solve it for 50 countries, or all the counties in Ireland, or something that shows it actually doing something cool?

It looks like a scam.

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