So what kind of qubits is IBM going for? transmons?
IBM unveils 127-qubit quantum processor
31–40 of 325 posts
Re: IBM unveils 127-qubit quantum processor
#32> IBM Quantum System Two is designed to work with IBM's future 433-qubit and 1,121 qubit processors. what's the smallest useful (as in, 'non-toy', or maybe 'worth buying time on') quantum computer?
Why 433 and 1121? In classical computers, everyone knows why a lot of things are done in powers of 2. Is there a different base number useful for quantum computation that I don't know about (for example, is this an integer multiple of a specific sin/cos value)?
Re: IBM unveils 127-qubit quantum processor
#33Quantum Computers sitting in their cryogenic chambers are such works of art, stacks of giant brass plates and hundreds of heat pipes (or coolant pipes? liquid helium I suppose) twisted and coiling throughout the structure hanging like some steampunk chandelier (why do they hang from above anyway?) EDIT: changed to a few direct links to pics: [0][1][2]
The esoteric design reminds me of the Connection Machine blog posted the other day, "to communicate to people that this was the first of a new generation of computers, unlike any machine they had seen before." [3]
I'm curious what they do with these prototypes once they are obsoleted in a matter of months, are the parts so expensive they tear it down to reuse them? Or will the machines be able to go on tour and stand in glass cases to intrigue the next generation of engineers? I know it had a tremendous effect on me to stand in front of a hand-wired lisp machine at the MIT museum.
[0] https://img-s-msn-com.akamaized.net/tenant/amp/entityid/AANs...
[1] https://img-s-msn-com.akamaized.net/tenant/amp/entityid/AANs...
[2] https://static.reuters.com/resources/r/?m=02&d=20191023&t=2&...
Re: IBM unveils 127-qubit quantum processor
#34For me, the name 'Eagle' reminds me of the book "Soul of a New Machine" by Tracy Kidder. That book is about the design and bring-up of another new (at the time) computer system, the Data General MV/8000, which was also code-named Eagle.
I wish IBM great success with their work.
edit: Clarified that the MV/8000 project was also code-named Eagle.
Re: IBM unveils 127-qubit quantum processor
#35Where does this sit on the "applicably breaking secure classical cryptography" spectrum?
There are probably entities saving encrypted data right now for when that day arrives. Brings up many interesting lines of thought beyond "is it breakable right now?"
Re: IBM unveils 127-qubit quantum processor
#36Earlier quoted context omitted.
In the months after such an announcement you can expect articles with various attempts at an application to pop up on arxiv. I am saying "attempts at an application", not because the papers are not impressive, rather because the devices are still too small and noisy to excite anyone but researchers in the field. As a researcher in the field I am certainly very excited, because the figure of merit I care about have be…
Would you have examples of such simulations at hand? Or links describing some of them? I know next to nothing about quantum computing but I’ve always loved a good infeasible problem.
Feynman's 1981 "Simulating Physics with Computers" is one of the first mentions of how it is (naively) exponentially expensive to store on a classical computer the quantum state of something with n degrees of freedom (a molecule made of multiple atoms). He suggests (vaguely) the notion of a quantum computer. https://www.google.com/search?hl=en&q=simulating%20physics%2...
It is less known that a Russian scientist made similar remarks at the same time.
This "Science" news blurb pops up on google as an intro as well https://www.science.org/content/article/quantum-computer-sim... . Although it makes you laugh when you notice that the principle was suggested in 1981, formalized in the mid 90s, initial experimental successes in late 00s, and today we are barely simulating 3 atom molecules. In our defense, it was a 100 years between Babbage, passing through Turing, and getting to something like ENIAC. And a few more decades before the PC.
Re: IBM unveils 127-qubit quantum processor
#37Quantum Computers sitting in their cryogenic chambers are such works of art, stacks of giant brass plates and hundreds of heat pipes (or coolant pipes? liquid helium I suppose) twisted and coiling throughout the structure hanging like some steampunk chandelier (why do they hang from above anyway?) EDIT: changed to a few direct links to pics: [0][1][2] The esoteric design reminds me of the Connection Machine blog post…
The pipes you mentioned are microwave conduits (for various control signals).
Re: IBM unveils 127-qubit quantum processor
#38Earlier quoted context omitted.
> It heralds the point in hardware development where quantum circuits cannot be reliably simulated exactly on a classical computer.
I mean, that was practically already the case with the Google Sycamore processor. IBM claimed that they could simulate the 53-qubit circuit in something like 24 hours on a supercomputer (with a bunch of bespoke optimizations), but a 54-qubit version would have been completely classically intractable. We didn’t need to get to 100+ qubits, and those came out before now.
Google's claim was widely criticized for being an unimportant and uninteresting benchmark, making the quantum s*premacy claim nonsense.
Later research proposes that an exascale-level supercomputer could simulate it in "dozens of seconds".
Re: IBM unveils 127-qubit quantum processor
#39Earlier quoted context omitted.
As much as I would love to see quantum computers contributing to quantum chemistry, it's unclear that having more computation would magically solve any actual practical real world applied problem in chemistry. I assume you're saying classically infeasible to refer to the O(n*7) scaling of some QM basis functions?
Your assumption is correct, and your cautiousness is warranted. I do expect the polynomial complexity to become better with future improvements in algorithms. Either way, it is on us fanboys to make devices that fulfill these claims.
Best of luck. having my skepticism disproved by the QC folks woudl be a major win, but it's not something I'd spend my time on. I think it makes more sense to improve existing codes to run as fast as possible on the biggest supercomputers we have, although even that isn't super useful because, as far as I can tell, better chemical simulations don't lead to better applied science in the field of chemistry.
Re: IBM unveils 127-qubit quantum processor
#40Quantum Computers sitting in their cryogenic chambers are such works of art, stacks of giant brass plates and hundreds of heat pipes (or coolant pipes? liquid helium I suppose) twisted and coiling throughout the structure hanging like some steampunk chandelier (why do they hang from above anyway?) EDIT: changed to a few direct links to pics: [0][1][2] The esoteric design reminds me of the Connection Machine blog post…
My antivirus client won't let me open that second link, claims some kind of malicious activity, didn't look into the details.