D-Wave Launches Free Quantum Cloud Service • Hacker News Board

Re: D-Wave Launches Free Quantum Cloud Service

#31

Post by krastanov » Fri, Oct 05, 2018, 10:03 AM UTC

gaze wrote: post #12

doitLP wrote: post #11

Last I knew (a few months ago) we were somewhere less than 20 qubits and getting a straight answer on “does it work” depended on who was being interviewed. How do they have a 2048 qubit chip? And why is it a binary multiple? Did I miss some announcement?

At best, d-wave is making an adiabatic quantum computer, not a gate based quantum computer, at worst (most likely), they're a scam.

Nope, at best they have a "quantum annealing machine" which is not more powerful than a classical computer. Adiabatic quantum computers are just as powerful as the gate model of quantum computing.

Re: D-Wave Launches Free Quantum Cloud Service

#32

Post by krastanov » Fri, Oct 05, 2018, 10:08 AM UTC

microtherion wrote: post #20

core-questions wrote: post #16

Earlier quoted context omitted.

There's some applications listed on their website, this one about Volkswagen doing some traffic pattern analysis was kinda interesting even if I can't follow the math: https://www.dwavesys.com/sites/default/files/VW.pdf

It is an interesting paper, and I can see how the D-Wave architecture would be well suited to it, but, as slide 6 says: > The Question that drove us... Is there a real-world problem that could be addressed with a Quantum Computer? So it's a classical case of a solution in search of a problem.

I agree. Even more, their slide is a bit misleading as well. They do not have a quantum computer, they have a "quantum annealing machine" which is not more powerful than a classical computer.

Re: D-Wave Launches Free Quantum Cloud Service

#33

Post by krastanov » Fri, Oct 05, 2018, 10:11 AM UTC

Abishek_Muthian wrote: post #19

Has anyone compared the terms of these quantum cloud services to get the status of who owns the code & their security? i.e do these companies have un-restricted access to the user's code. Considering any quantum advantage is worth million $, we need clarification on the IP.

A lot of the services say something about owning the code you send to them to run. But at the present time this really does not matter, as these are only tech demonstrations that barely run even toy models. Even worse with dwave, they do not have a quantum computer as usually defined (something supposedly more powerful than a classical computer).

Re: D-Wave Launches Free Quantum Cloud Service

#34

Post by deftnerd » Fri, Oct 05, 2018, 10:49 AM UTC

krastanov wrote: post #32

microtherion wrote: post #20

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It is an interesting paper, and I can see how the D-Wave architecture would be well suited to it, but, as slide 6 says: > The Question that drove us... Is there a real-world problem that could be addressed with a Quantum Computer? So it's a classical case of a solution in search of a problem.

I agree. Even more, their slide is a bit misleading as well. They do not have a quantum computer, they have a "quantum annealing machine" which is not more powerful than a classical computer.

This free API seems like a smart idea then. Since they're a solution in search of a problem, letting the crowd figure out what problems might be suited for their architecture could help them determine what industries they can offer services to.

Re: D-Wave Launches Free Quantum Cloud Service

#35

Post by amingilani » Fri, Oct 05, 2018, 12:16 PM UTC

Here's the sign up link: https://cloud.dwavesys.com/leap/signup/

Things to note:

* You have to scroll to the bottom of the agreement to activate the checkbox, which activates the sign up button

* You have to be (or say you are) in the US

Re: D-Wave Launches Free Quantum Cloud Service

#36

Post by core-questions » Fri, Oct 05, 2018, 2:39 PM UTC

james1234 wrote: post #18

I appreciate their service. But, is quantum computing going to be costly for dedicated use ($2000/hour)? I hope someone is working on providing a quantum computing service that is cheaper.

Keep in mind that that is an hour block of processing time. If a job only takes a few microseconds, that's a lot of jobs, and you don't have to (nor would you be able to) execute them in just one contiguous hour. You'd spread it out over a month as you refine your processes.

If you're in an industry that hopes to be able to get value from these machines one day, $2k is cheap.

If you're just a hobbyist, the minute or two of time they give you is enough to get started, and if you're good at it, you could probably arrange with one of the universities or national laboratories that have their own machine to get some time on there.

Re: D-Wave Launches Free Quantum Cloud Service

#37

Post by microtherion » Fri, Oct 05, 2018, 8:25 PM UTC

sigmaprimus wrote: post #23

Lots of questions about "is this real or a scam", "what's it good for", "what's the difference between this and a true QC". Well... I have signed up for this, I know very little about the nath, the theory etc. I'm not a computer scientist but apperantly that is what they want, they want people that will come at quantum computing with little to no previous knowledge and come at it with a different point of view..in pa…

> I figure if the Kardashians can get ritch off the internet without knowing one line of code, maybe I have a shot with this!

Promise me that if you DO strike it rich with quantum computing, you'll change your name to "Hadamard Kardashian"!

Re: D-Wave Launches Free Quantum Cloud Service

#38

Post by jorgec » Fri, Oct 12, 2018, 5:32 PM UTC

core-questions wrote: post #15

gaze wrote: post #12

Earlier quoted context omitted.

At best, d-wave is making an adiabatic quantum computer, not a gate based quantum computer, at worst (most likely), they're a scam.

It doesn't look like a scam. When you sign up, you get an API key, and you can get an SDK and submit problems to it. I'm not enough of a mathematician to be able to formulate anything, but there's a growing list of people that have been able to get useful results from it.

I don't know which part of "we are running a quantum computer but we don't wanna show you" (they are saying the same during 10 years), is not a scam?. They could run the api in a server and sells us as it runs in a quantum machine.

Re: D-Wave Launches Free Quantum Cloud Service

#39

Post by jorgec » Fri, Oct 12, 2018, 5:41 PM UTC

sigmaprimus wrote: post #23

Lots of questions about "is this real or a scam", "what's it good for", "what's the difference between this and a true QC". Well... I have signed up for this, I know very little about the nath, the theory etc. I'm not a computer scientist but apperantly that is what they want, they want people that will come at quantum computing with little to no previous knowledge and come at it with a different point of view..in pa…

"Canadian startup company D-Wave demonstrated a 16-qubit quantum computer. The computer solved a sudoku puzzle and other pattern matching problems. The company claims it will produce practical systems by 2008." -2007 (11 years ago).

The question is not if it is viable/a scam or not. It is a scam. They have broken so many promises that it is not funny anymore.