A new study claim that the D - moving ridge quantum data processor is no firm than the PC on your desk , lead many to proclaim the technology as overhyped . fuss is , the execution test were too easy and not a true measure of what these machine are up to of doing .
The study , which now appears in Science , take that the $ 15 million D - moving ridge Two is still no quicker than normal computers ; the political machine fail to exhibit the expected “ quantum speedup . ” An ETH Zurich squad came to this stopping point after pitting the quantum machine against a conventional one . After the auto harness a set of problems , it appeared that the D - Wave ’s quantum panorama did n’t confer it any speed vantage .
The press oppose consequently , calling it “ sluggish , ” and “ unimpressive . ” Some evenquestioned whether it ’s quantum computer at all .

But as the research worker themselves noted in the study ,
Our final result do not predominate out the possibility of speedup for other classes of problems and illustrate the elusive nature of the quantum speedup question .
Indeed , this is the job — and D - Wave is saying the same affair : the tests were n’t indicatory of the motorcar ’s true power . Seth Fletcher of Scientific American verbalise to Colin Williams , director of business organization development for D - Wave , to get an explanation . Williams says that the paper “ does n’t say anything cardinal about the grading of quantum annealing . ” Moreover ,

Troyer ’s group chose an inappropriate set of problems to perform this test . “ The problem ensemble was too easy , ” he says . sacrifice hard problems , he says , the D - undulation machine would have had a chance to secernate itself . Williams points to a recent theme by Helmut Katzgraber for support , along with a web log post on benchmarking the D - Wave Two by the Google Quantum A.I. Lab squad . Williams also say that problems of the sort outlined in a recent lecture by Itay Hen of USC could point to better benchmarking problems .
Any foreigner who compact into the 500 - Wave contestation probably wonder : Why , again , is it so hard to subside this argumentation ? Troyer explain it well in an electronic mail , so I ’ll cite him at duration :
It is peculiarly difficult here because they [ D - Wave ] employ qubits with very short coherence times of the order of a few nanoseconds , while the full time to perform of one annealing streak is 20 microsecond . The qubits are thus tenacious for only a fraction of the total time , and this raises the question whether they are “ coherent enough ” or “ quantum enough ” to show a quantum speedup .

The situation is made even more complex in that we do not hump theoretically if even perfectly logical qubits would offer any reward ( quantum speedup ) for the type of optimization problems that there [ sic ] are interested in . Thus , if one is unlucky , even perfect qubits might not volunteer any reward , while if one is lucky one might see quantum acceleration even with imperfect qubits with myopic coherence multiplication .
Again , the gunpoint of quantum computers is not necessarily their speed — it ’s the nature of the problems they ’re equal to of resolution , which they ’ll be able to do with weird efficiency .
https://gizmodo.com/what-will-nasa-be-doing-with-its-new-quantum-computer-1468333514

Readthe rest of Fletcher ’s articleat SciAm .
Image : D - Wave Systems .
quantum computersquantum physicsScience

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