Comment on Regarding this picture, where do you think quantum computers lie and why?
Varyk@sh.itjust.works 4 weeks ago
You’ve been able to buy a quantum computer for years, so I guess trough of disillusionment.
although DARPA has them, so traveling up from the nadir of the trough of disillusionment.
quantumzeitgeist.com/how-to-buy-a-quantum-compute…
You’re not going to hear a lot about them, but there are and have been many companies consistently working on improving the accuracy and power of quantum computers and still are.
regular computers were around for 40 years before being successfully developed into personal machines with commercial utility, quantum computers are kind of in that zone roght mow, big room sized things that have a couple cubits.
but they are real and available, and the field is constantly in development
orclev@lemmy.world 4 weeks ago
It’s debatable if D-Wave is actually a quantum computer at least in the sense most people use the term. There’s a lot of unanswered questions still on exactly how to use and design a quantum computer and we’re not likely to get those answers until we can reliably produce and run systems with at least 8 qubits. Maybe DARPA and the military/CIA has such systems, but I don’t think anyone else does.
Quantum computers are still mostly theoretical. We have some of the building blocks of one, but there’s still a few critical pieces missing. Quantum computers are in about the same place as fusion reactors are. Theoretically possible but not currently producible in a form that’s useful without a few more technological breakthroughs.
Varyk@sh.itjust.works 4 weeks ago
If the computers are using functional qubits as processing power, then they’re a quantum computer.
I think IBM’s chip has a thousand cubits hang on-
IBMs quantum computer has 1121 cubits in their heron chip now in the quantum computer, they’re producing now and are working toward 100,000 qubits per processor in the next decade.
forbes.com/…/top-quantum-computing-companies/
Asidonhopo@lemmy.world 4 weeks ago
From your article,
Until quantum computing has its Alan Turing moment it will remain a curiosity. The power of qubits needs to be yoked as a beast of burden for computation and actual useful problem solving the way that digital computing was with the Turing machine. It’s not a certainty that this will ever happen.
Sometimes I think that believers in quantum computing’s superiority to digital computing are as silly as those who think we’ve almost proven P=NP. But who knows, both might be valid.
Varyk@sh.itjust.works 4 weeks ago
DARPA dusagrees and the US has doubled billions of dollars of investment in the last few years testing available quantum computers.
ibm is increasing quantum processing power just like they did regular computers.
Declaring that quantum computers is not yet a practical reality despite them being real and functioning, progressing and in use is akin to dismissing the wright brothers after their first successful flight.
like if people doubted the wright brothers before they built and flew their plane?
understandable.
but doubting them after kitty hawk is popular willful ignorance, or an aversion to logical imagination.
It’s the same common perception about new technology until said tech becomes less-new and widely available, at which point everyone swears they saw it coming a mile away and it’s the only way things could have happened.
Electric cars is another great example, people have been moaning for 20 years that they are impractical and their batteries are difficult to manufacture and their capacity just isn’t up to snuff so they’ll never really take off like gasoline cars, and now everyone with any understanding of the auto industry has pretty much accepted the inevitability of EV dominance.