[HN Gopher] IBM quantum computers now finish some tasks in hours...
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IBM quantum computers now finish some tasks in hours, not months
Author : nkjoep
Score : 109 points
Date : 2021-02-04 13:14 UTC (1 days ago)
(HTM) web link (www.engadget.com)
(TXT) w3m dump (www.engadget.com)
| dvh wrote:
| I think this year will IBM factor 55 using Shor's.
| AtlasBarfed wrote:
| Genuine question, is this sarcasm or reality? IBM's marketing
| of things like this is highly questionably, especially since
| blockchain and watson turned out to be such smokescreens from
| the marketplace/product/adoption standpoint.
|
| 1000 qubits in two years seems like a "quantum" leap based on
| what I read.
| suifbwish wrote:
| Those SOBs were too busy planning the demise of CentOS to
| bother
| dvh wrote:
| In 2019 ibm tried 35 but there was too much noise, I think
| this year they will skip 35 and go directly to 55.
| klyrs wrote:
| > 1000 qubits in two years seems like a "quantum" leap based
| on what I read.
|
| It is; that's enough to make a single error-corrected qubit.
| So the leap here is effectively one quantum
| 8note wrote:
| It doesn't seem likely that they'll factor 55 within 3 years
| DebtDeflation wrote:
| >Genuine question, is this sarcasm or reality?
|
| Pretty sure it's both.
|
| The hype level now being applied to all things "quantum"
| makes the hype that was applied to AI a few years ago seem
| like mere puffery.
| refulgentis wrote:
| IMHO thats a bit blinkered, i have a deep interest in the
| field and the only mainstream publications on it clearly
| note there's no practical applications yet, and we're
| looking at a 5-10 year horizon of _maybe_ finding a niche
| application that actually improves with a handful of qubits
|
| Contrast that with AI, which caused formation of new
| departments and hiring binges throughout industry,
| including industry far outside tech
| xirbeosbwo1234 wrote:
| And all those hordes of "AI" "engineers" are less useful
| than a few hundred statisticians. If the buzzwords get
| innumerate business types to invest in building models,
| that is great. I just wish they would let people use
| things that actually work and that a human can
| understand, like linear regression.
|
| We have seen legitimate revolutions in natural language
| processing, computer vision, and games. Those things,
| however, are still a long way from being useful.
| dboreham wrote:
| Very confused why they're not trying 42 first.
| daxfohl wrote:
| Qiskit has been out forever (https://qiskit.org/). What do they
| mean by "plans to release it in 2021"?
| kitd wrote:
| v1.0 release?
| ericmay wrote:
| If anyone is interested - my old team published a primer on
| quantum computing and using Qiskit that should be quite
| appropriate for a developer audience. Code samples start at
| page 48.
|
| https://arxiv.org/abs/1907.11513v1
|
| I have no involvement now and have moved on to a different
| company. The team has also gone on to do way bigger and better
| things and has published some additional papers that are way
| over my skill level and knowledge.
| amir734jj wrote:
| Thanks for sharing
| 11thEarlOfMar wrote:
| "Qiskit and improved hardware will lead to a day when anyone can
| put quantum computing to use, even if it's through a distant
| mainframe." J. Fingas, Engaget, 2021
|
| "I think there is a world market for maybe five computers."
| Thomas Watson, president of IBM, 1943
| dr_dshiv wrote:
| "I think there is a world market for maybe five cloud computer
| companies" -- what Thomas Watson meant
| oblio wrote:
| > "I think there is a world market for maybe five computers."
| Thomas Watson, president of IBM, 1943
|
| Watson was not wrong, even though everybody likes to quote this
| and act like he was dumb.
|
| At the time he was saying that a computer was the size of a 2
| story building and probably cost half a billion dollars in
| today's money (maybe even more?) plus who knows how much in
| maintenance costs.
|
| And their applicability was extremely limited plus potential
| customers didn't even realize that they'd need them.
| greatgoat420 wrote:
| So, there is a world market for five quantum computers that
| anyone can use?
| dayofthedaleks wrote:
| 1) Am I hitting a paywall or is the article really only 4
| paragraphs long, amounting to a directly-relayed press release?
|
| 2) Is it more likely that this is funded by the NSA, or instead
| that the NSA has had something similar for decades and this is a
| ploughsare-type filtration of techniques into the private sector?
| zitterbewegung wrote:
| 1) Yes
|
| 2) No, ploughsare filtration techniques seem to go in reverse
| like self driving cars.
| Bostonian wrote:
| What does the phrase "ploughsare-type filtration of techniques
| into the private sector" mean?
| tsomctl wrote:
| I'm thinking it's this:
| https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Swords_to_ploughshares
| undefined1 wrote:
| what are the implications with regard to encryption and crypto,
| if any?
| upofadown wrote:
| This is only about speeding up the support stuff. No actual
| quantum improvement is discussed.
|
| There is a tremendous amount of misinformation floating around
| on this topic. The short answer is that we are not even close
| to starting yet. This has a good discussion:
|
| * https://crypto.stackexchange.com/questions/59795/largest-
| int...
|
| Note the new and exciting estimate of _only_ 20 million
| physical qubits required to crack RSA 2048. The article
| mentions the hope of achieving 1000 physical qubits.
| xirbeosbwo1234 wrote:
| Does "crypto" refer to the branch of mathematics or to the
| scam?
|
| It has substantial theoretical implications in cryptography,
| but any practical applications are decades off.
|
| Cryptocurrency couldn't get any more broken, so it has no
| implications for that.
| hannob wrote:
| None at all.
| m-chrzan wrote:
| Note that this is not about quantum speedup, but, rather
| conversely, making the classical part of the computation more
| efficient. Still important to get these quantum-adjacent things
| correct, but not as groundbreaking as one could hope for just
| reading the headline.
| silexia wrote:
| I am pretty impressed. Also, this makes digital currencies even
| more suspect.
| Covzire wrote:
| AS I understand it, Quantum computers as of yet are only
| useful for a relatively small set of obscure operations.
| They're extremely fast of course, but they're not a drop in
| replacement for basic gate operations that classical
| computers and their crypto algorithms use. A cryptocoin like
| bitcoin uses multiple algorithms making them an exceptionally
| difficult problem to program a quantum computer to handle. If
| you ask me, we'll hear about Quantum computers breaking a lot
| of other things before they get to crypto coins.
| m-chrzan wrote:
| This is specifically what you shouldn't be worried about just
| based on the speedup that the article focuses on. This is
| about a constant-factor speedup from a better-engineered
| classical component, not the exponential speedup you get from
| being able to handle additional qubits.
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