The Quantum Quest for a Revolutionary Computer (Jeff Bezo's "Infinity Machine")

Time Magazine ^ | 2-17-14 | Lev Grossman

[equalator]

“[The company D-Wave] makes a new type of computer called a quantum computer that’s so radical and strange, people are still trying to figure out what it’s for and how to use it…. The supercooled niobium chip at the heart of the D-Wave Two has 512 qubits and therefore could in theory perform 2^512 operations simultaneously. That’s more calculations than there are atoms in the universe, by many orders of magnitude…. Naturally, a lot of people want one. This is the age of Big Data, and we’re burying ourselves in ­­information—search queries, genomes, credit-card purchases, phone records, retail transactions, social media, geological surveys, climate data, surveillance videos, movie recommendations—and D-Wave just happens to be selling

[equalator]

The supercooled niobium chip at the heart of the D-Wave Two has 512 qubits and therefore could in theory perform 2^512 operations simultaneously. That’s more calculations than there are atoms in the universe, by many orders of magnitude…. Read more:

http://content.time.com/time/magazine/article/0,9171,2164806,00.html

I could see the Terminator going back in time to throw this chip into the steel--

[Hardastarboard]

So I can get bad data even faster. Cool!!

[dfwgator]

Or you can get your Pr0n faster.

[JRandomFreeper]

Somewhere in Russia, a mob programmer is already writing code for that....

/johnny

[Flick Lives]

The D-Wave Two is an unusual computer, and D-Wave is an unusual company. It’s small, and it has very few customers, but they’re blue-chip: they include the defense contractor Lockheed Martin; a computing lab that’s hosted by NASA and largely funded by Google; and a U.S. intelligence agency that D-Wave executives decline to name.

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That would be the NSA. Think of brute forcing any password in seconds.

[spel_grammer_an_punct_polise]

I want one! I want to get my PrOn faster! ;-)

[Bronzewound]

Will it run Photoshop?

[martin_fierro]

Won't run Win 8 tho.

[Jonty30]

He’s also writing a hacking program for it as well.

[GeronL]

how about CPM?

[HangnJudge]

[Gene Eric]

Imagine pumping all the data allegedly collected by the NSA into this apparatus — it could probably then be taught to compute “intuitively”.

[bigbob]

“could perform 2^512 operations simultaneously”

And 2^256 of them will be “SVCHOST”

[Bobalu]

The only quantum computers out there today are all Adiabatic quantum machines. There are some 512 qubit machines made in Canada and some of those are in the US but adiabatic just ain’t gonna cut it for factoring primes and similar problems..IMO.

They would need REAL quantum computers.

The Canadian D-Wave 512 qubit machine cannot factor primes as fast as a home-made array of graphics cards in a geeks basement.

http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/news/3037834/posts?page=10#10

[Carriage Hill]

Somewhere in Nigeria, scammers are busy writing new Nigerian 419 emails for that code.

[jsanders2001]

> That would be the NSA. Think of brute forcing any password in seconds.

They already can depending on the number of digits involved.

[jsanders2001]

> “could perform 2^512 operations simultaneously”

And 2^256 of them will be “SVCHOST”

System overload...

[piytar]

Ok, D-Wave. Prove it. Accept submittal of a ton of 512 bit composite numbers that are the products of two primes from JD Power & Associates. Factor them and publish the results. For a true 512 q-bit computer, this would be a trivial exercise.

Until you do that, D-Wave, I am more than skeptical...

[ElkGroveDan]

The supercooled niobium chip at the heart of the D-Wave Two has 512 qubits and therefore could in theory perform 2^512 operations simultaneously.

Yeah I know how that works. No sooner will I save up enough for one of these and get it up and running and they'll come up with the 1024 qubit model that's available in a dozen designer colors for half the price.

[Kackikat]

Is that Code 42? I have the coffee cup for that...