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Google plans to reach a Quantum Computing milestone before the year is out

technologyreview.com

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Re: Google plans to reach a Quantum Computing milestone before the year is out

#31

Post by justinpombrio »

lvh wrote: post #8
skdotdan wrote: post #5

Are quantum chips supposed to replace the current CPUs and GPUs? Or are they supposed to be "just" another component that we connect to the CPU, the same way we connect GPUs?

Almost certainly the latter. QC is very good at highly specific jobs, like factoring or searching. Similarly to GPUs, getting the data from the CPU to the GPU is costly. For now and presumably for a very long time, QC has that problem but way worse. (And it wouldn't give you speed ups yet even if the cost was free -- but Martinis asserts that won't take long.)

Going a little further:

For a very select set of problems (factoring and discrete log), quantum computers are exponentially faster than classical computers. For a few (including np-complete problems), they are quadratically faster. For everything else, they're no faster. (When I say "faster", I really mean the runtime of the best known quantum algorithms is better.)

For the forseeable future, quantum computers will be much smaller than classical computers -- the article is about Google building a 49 bit QC and how that would be a breakthrough. So for the forseeable future, they'll be separate components, used for special cases.

Re: Google plans to reach a Quantum Computing milestone before the year is out

#34

Post by shouldbworking »

mck- wrote: post #26

I'm surprised there is no mention of D-Wave systems - the quantum computer that Google bought a while ago [1] and how/why they decided to build it themselves from scratch. [1] https://www.quora.com/How-much-did-Google-pay-for-the-quantu...

I'm under the impression that Google determined there was nothing quantum about it but is unable to speak up due to a forest of NDA's.

Re: Google plans to reach a Quantum Computing milestone before the year is out

#35

Post by 13of40 »

nullnilvoid wrote: post #27
mark_l_watson wrote: post #2

I was excited to read this article up to the last sentence, a quote from the program manager “We’re trying to get support within Google, and this experiment has been very good to get other engineers talking to us.” to me, this statement negates much of the positive spin of the article. That said, the title does say 'stepping stone.' My primary professional interest is AI and quantum computing to pushing the field for…

I did not bother to read the article. The title looks suspicious to me. For a scientific breakthrough, you don't plan it ahead. Instead, you work hard for a long time and all in a sudden you hit that milestone. It is unpredictable and certainly cannot be planned easily.

I get the impression that quantum computing is already at a point where they understand the science, and the challenge now is how to implement it in a useful and viable way. If that's the case it's fine to say we can't manufacture it now but we'll be there in X months, give or take.

Re: Google plans to reach a Quantum Computing milestone before the year is out

#36

Post by praccu »

mck- wrote: post #26

I'm surprised there is no mention of D-Wave systems - the quantum computer that Google bought a while ago [1] and how/why they decided to build it themselves from scratch. [1] https://www.quora.com/How-much-did-Google-pay-for-the-quantu...

TLDR: DWave doesn't provide a speed-up over classical computers.

http://www.scottaaronson.com/blog/?p=3192

Re: Google plans to reach a Quantum Computing milestone before the year is out

#37

Post by 1_2__3 »

13of40 wrote: post #35
nullnilvoid wrote: post #27

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I did not bother to read the article. The title looks suspicious to me. For a scientific breakthrough, you don't plan it ahead. Instead, you work hard for a long time and all in a sudden you hit that milestone. It is unpredictable and certainly cannot be planned easily.

I get the impression that quantum computing is already at a point where they understand the science, and the challenge now is how to implement it in a useful and viable way. If that's the case it's fine to say we can't manufacture it now but we'll be there in X months, give or take.

It's been in that state for many years at this point.

Re: Google plans to reach a Quantum Computing milestone before the year is out

#38

Post by 21 »

nullnilvoid wrote: post #27
mark_l_watson wrote: post #2

I was excited to read this article up to the last sentence, a quote from the program manager “We’re trying to get support within Google, and this experiment has been very good to get other engineers talking to us.” to me, this statement negates much of the positive spin of the article. That said, the title does say 'stepping stone.' My primary professional interest is AI and quantum computing to pushing the field for…

I did not bother to read the article. The title looks suspicious to me. For a scientific breakthrough, you don't plan it ahead. Instead, you work hard for a long time and all in a sudden you hit that milestone. It is unpredictable and certainly cannot be planned easily.

The LHC was planned 25 years before it was a reality. In fact, one of the first pictures put on the WWW when it was created at CERN was a schematic of the LHC:

https://home.cern/sites/home.web.cern.ch/files/image/update-...

Re: Google plans to reach a Quantum Computing milestone before the year is out

#39

Post by wzeng »

protomyth wrote: post #33

Is there a definitive book explaining Quantum Computing from the ground up?

The best book out there is still Quantum Computation and Quantum Information by Nielsen and Chuang. It isn't quite current, as it lacks both the advances in hardware (superconducting qubits) and algorithms (quantum/classical hybrids & the sampling benchmark that this article is talking about). It's still the best way to get started as it introduces everything from the linear algebra all the way up.

I work in quantum computing and it's the book I always recommend.

Re: Google plans to reach a Quantum Computing milestone before the year is out

#40

Post by Xcelerate »

RushAndAPush wrote: post #13
mark_l_watson wrote: post #2

I was excited to read this article up to the last sentence, a quote from the program manager “We’re trying to get support within Google, and this experiment has been very good to get other engineers talking to us.” to me, this statement negates much of the positive spin of the article. That said, the title does say 'stepping stone.' My primary professional interest is AI and quantum computing to pushing the field for…

I think a lot of computer scientists have a hard time believing quantum computers are possible. Not saying I agree, but I've heard this viewpoint a number of times.

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