Willow, Our Quantum Chip • Hacker News Board

Re: Willow, Our Quantum Chip

#71

Post by thrance » Mon, Dec 09, 2024, 5:48 PM UTC

vessenes wrote: post #18

I’m a quantum dabbler so I’ll throw out an armchair reaction: this is a significant announcement. My memory is that 256 bit keys in non quantum resistant algos need something like 2500 qubits or so; and by that I mean generally useful programmable qubits. To show a bit over 100 qubits with stability, meaning the information survives a while, long enough to be read, and general enough to run some benchmarks on is some…

The error rates given are still horrendous and nowhere near low enough for the Quantum Fourier Transform used by Shor's algorithm. Taking qubit connectivity into account, a single CX between 2 qubits that are 10 edges aways gives an error rate of 1.5%.

Also, the more qubits you have/the more instructions are in your program, the faster the quantum state collapses. Exponentially so. Qubit connectivity is still ridiculously low (~3) and does not seem to be improving at all.

About AI, what algorithm(s) do you think might have an edge over classical supercomputers in the next 30 years? I'm really curious, because to me it's all (quantum) snake oil.

Re: Willow, Our Quantum Chip

#72

Post by 0xB31B1B » Mon, Dec 09, 2024, 5:48 PM UTC

pandemic_region wrote: post #50

> Willow performed a standard benchmark computation in under five minutes that would take one of today’s fastest supercomputers 10 septillion years — a number that vastly exceeds the age of the Universe. What computation would that be? Also, what is the relationship, if any, between quantum computing and AI? Are these technologies complementary?

"Also, what is the relationship, if any, between quantum computing and AI? Are these technologies complementary?"

AI is limited in part by the computation available at training and runtime. If your computer is 10^X times faster, then your model is also "better". Thats why we have giant warehouses full of H100 chips pulling down a few megawatts from the grid right now. Quantum computing could theoretically allow your phone to do that.

Re: Willow, Our Quantum Chip

#73

Post by wasabi991011 » Mon, Dec 09, 2024, 5:48 PM UTC

pandemic_region wrote: post #50

> Willow performed a standard benchmark computation in under five minutes that would take one of today’s fastest supercomputers 10 septillion years — a number that vastly exceeds the age of the Universe. What computation would that be? Also, what is the relationship, if any, between quantum computing and AI? Are these technologies complementary?

> Also, what is the relationship, if any, between quantum computing and AI? Are these technologies complementary?

Ongoing research.

The main idea of quantum machine learning is that qubits make an exponentially high-dimensional space with linear resources, so can store and compute a lot of data easily.

However, getting the data in and results out of the quantum computer is tricky, and if you need many iterations in your optimization, that may destroy any advantage you have from using quantum computers.

Re: Willow, Our Quantum Chip

#74

Post by _benj » Mon, Dec 09, 2024, 5:49 PM UTC

michaelt wrote: post #58

Mistletoe wrote: post #16

In what ways could Google monetize quantum computing?

Searching through an unstructured data set of size N on a classical computer takes O(N) time but on a quantum computer, Grover's Algorithm allows such a search to be performed in O(N^0.5) time. So Quantum Computing, could bring us a future where, when you perform a Google search for a word, the web pages returned actually contain the word you searched for.

> So Quantum Computing, could bring us a future where, when you perform a Google search for a word, the web pages returned actually contain the word you searched for.

Lol! I'm not gonna put a kagi plug here...

Re: Willow, Our Quantum Chip

#75

Post by kernal » Mon, Dec 09, 2024, 5:49 PM UTC

>Willow’s performance on this benchmark is astonishing: It performed a computation in under five minutes that would take one of today’s fastest supercomputers 1025 or 10 septillion years. If you want to write it out, it’s 10,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000 years. This mind-boggling number exceeds known timescales in physics and vastly exceeds the age of the universe. It lends credence to the notion that quantum computation occurs in many parallel universes, in line with the idea that we live in a multiverse, a prediction first made by David Deutsch.

A much simpler explanation is that your benchmark is severely flawed.

Re: Willow, Our Quantum Chip

#76

Post by seanw444 » Mon, Dec 09, 2024, 5:49 PM UTC

whimsicalism wrote: post #29

We need to seriously think if our systems/society are even remotely ready for this.

They're not. What's there to think about?

Re: Willow, Our Quantum Chip

#77

Post by JanisErdmanis » Mon, Dec 09, 2024, 5:50 PM UTC

vessenes wrote: post #18

I’m a quantum dabbler so I’ll throw out an armchair reaction: this is a significant announcement. My memory is that 256 bit keys in non quantum resistant algos need something like 2500 qubits or so; and by that I mean generally useful programmable qubits. To show a bit over 100 qubits with stability, meaning the information survives a while, long enough to be read, and general enough to run some benchmarks on is some…

The required number of qubits to execute Shor’s algorithm is way larger than 2500 qubits as the error ceiling for logical qubits must decrease exponentially with every logical qubit added to produce meaningful results. Hence, repeated applications of error correction or an increase in the surface code would be required. That would significantly blow up the number of physical qubits needed.

Re: Willow, Our Quantum Chip

#78

Post by d3m0t3p » Mon, Dec 09, 2024, 5:50 PM UTC

wrsh07 wrote: post #19

wslh wrote: post #10

ELI5: what I could do if I have this chip at home?

Probably just research on quantum computers? I don't think it's big enough to let you solve any practical problems, but maybe someone can correct me

IF (and that's a big if) that's true then it means they can factorize number into primes with this quantum computer and break encryption.

Re: Willow, Our Quantum Chip

#79

Post by aithrowawaycomm » Mon, Dec 09, 2024, 5:50 PM UTC

jawns wrote: post #8

> It lends credence to the notion that quantum computation occurs in many parallel universes, in line with the idea that we live in a multiverse I see the evidence, and I see the conclusion, but there's a lot of ellipses between the evidence and the conclusion. Do quantum computing folks really think that we are borrowing capacity from other universes for these calculations?

I suspect the real issue is that Big Tech investors and executives (including Sundar Pichai) are utterly hopped up on sci-fi, and this sort of stuff convinces them to dedicate resources to quantum computing.

Re: Willow, Our Quantum Chip

#80

Post by potsandpans » Mon, Dec 09, 2024, 5:51 PM UTC

goatking wrote: post #51

vessenes wrote: post #18

I’m a quantum dabbler so I’ll throw out an armchair reaction: this is a significant announcement. My memory is that 256 bit keys in non quantum resistant algos need something like 2500 qubits or so; and by that I mean generally useful programmable qubits. To show a bit over 100 qubits with stability, meaning the information survives a while, long enough to be read, and general enough to run some benchmarks on is some…

How can I, a regular software engineer, learn about quantum computing without having to learn quantum theory? > Worth spending a little time doing some long tail strategizing I’d say any tips for starters?