Quantum computer to debut next week

Techworld ^ | 08 February 2007 | Peter Judge

[US admirer]

Twenty years before most scientists expected it, a commercial company has announceda quantum computer that promises to massively speed up searches and optimisation calculations.

D-Wave of British Columbia has promised to demonstrate a quantum computer next Tuesday, that can carry out 64,000 calculations simultaneously (in parallel "universes"), thanks to a new technique which rethinks the already-uncanny world of quantum computing. But the academic world is taking a wait-and-see approach.

D-Wave is the world's only "commercial" quantum computing company, backed by more than $20 million of venture capital (there are more commercial ventures in the related field of quantum cryptography). Its stated aim is to eventually produce commercially available quantum computers that can be used online or shipped to computer rooms, where they will solve intractable and expensive problems such as financial optimisation. It has been predicted that quantum computing will make current computer security obsolete, cracking any current cryptography scheme by providing an unlimited amount of simultaneous processing resources. Multiple quantum states exist at the same time, so every quantum bit or "qubit" in such a machine is simultaneously 0 and 1. D-Wave's prototype has only 16 qubits, but systems with hundreds of qubits would be able to process more inputs than there are atoms in the universe.

Scientists in the world's many quantum science departments are looking anxiously at whether the demonstration - linked to a computer museum in Mountain View California, will vindicate their work or cast doubt upon it.

"This is somewhat like claims of cold fusion," said Professor Andrew Steane of Oxford University's Centre for Quantum Computing. "I doubt that this computing method is substantially easier to achieve than any other."

Others are more enthusiastic: "I'll be a bit of a sceptic till I see what they have done," said Professor Seth Lloyd of MIT. "But I'm happy these guys are doing it." Lloyd is one of the scientists who helped develop the "adiabatic" model of quantum computing which D-Wave's system exploits - a method which D-Wave believes will sidestep the problems which have restricted progress in quantum computing so far.

[ctdonath2]

Does this mean secure banking is out the window?!?

Interesting question.
Quantum computing vs. quantum cryptography.
Irresistable force meets immovable object?

[Bommer]

D-Wave's prototype has only 16 qubits, but systems with hundreds of qubits would be able to process more inputs than there are atoms in the universe.

....and yet Windows would probably still crash it!

[Bender2]

I totally don't know what that means but I Want !!!!!

[healy61]

that is funny. Obviously your mind is a q-mind. LOL

[Reeses]

Except that the bank's computers would be hacked so the theives would have both sets of numbers.

If they get into the bank's computers they can put any numbers they want on any account. You won't be of any concern to them.

Money is mostly just information, magnetic bits on a disk somewhere. Someone can steal the bits but the bank should be able to recreate your money for you from backups.

[bkepley]

"he basically said that the idea of quantum computing is based on a fundamental misunderstanding and cannot work"

I always wondered how you can get a result if there are the thing is always true and false at the same time.

[Caesar Soze]

Yeah that's real practical when I do my online banking, thanks for that.

Your bank could send you a DVD or USB device with the OTP material on it. Eight gigabytes out to be enough key material to get you through all the banking you need done. Or smaller pads could be distributed to you by the bank over the internet protected by a symmetric cipher (which remains resistant to QC attacks).

[Spirochete]

Or maybe it wont at the same time.

We can control it by looking at it, or looking away.

[ctdonath2]

Actually, Folding@Home is a marvelous problem for quantum computing. Dunno how big a machine you'd need, or when it would be available. You literally could put in the parameters for folding, tell it what kind of answer you're looking for, and it would promptly give you a solution - rather than trying to commandeer thousands of unused computers for years on end.

[expatpat]

As long as the pad is truly random, is never reused, and only the recipient has a copy, then the encryption can never ever be cracked using any method.

That is true, but the problem is getting the recipient the one-time pad with high probability that noone else gets it.

[ctdonath2]

Now we are back into the world of couriers, stealing the pad(s), moles, spies, etc.

A.K.A. "rubber hose cryptography".

[TalonDJ]

There are actually encryptions schemes that are not crackable no matter how much computing power you have. Plus even for many of the ones that are crackable it takes vastly more computing power to crack it than it does to use it practically.

[ctdonath2]

Windows would crash in every way possible simultaniously.

[HeartlandOfAmerica]

Thanks ;( I was still mellowing to the pic upstream there then ran across yours. *puke*

[RussP]

"I always wondered how you can get a result if there are the thing is always true and false at the same time."

John Kerry may be able to answer that.

[savedbygrace]

But could it calculate how to fold a shirt in two seconds?

http://video.yahoo.com/video/play?vid=39ebc2419a791ea5ea16a753e4abc96d.686246

[Kurt_Hectic]

he he good point! As it is, my brain is far to small to comprehend the quantum mechanic stuff, everything I know, I learnt from Michael Crichton's 'Transit'; something about the electron operating in 32 dimensions at the same time, instead of 'on' and 'off', thus making the computer 32*32*32*32*32 etc faster or something...scary stuff...

[adorno]

promised to demonstrate a quantum computer next Tuesday, that can carry out 64,000 calculations simultaneously (in parallel "universes")

Somebody has borrowed some ideas from Santa Claus. How else could Santa deliver so many presents to so many kids all over the world in one single night? Parallel universes.

[TalonDJ]

cracking the transmission of the pad would be all but impossible. To crack something you have to KNOW when you randomly hit the right encryption. If all that you are decrypting is random numbers then that is all you would ever see. There would be no way to know which one was the right set of random numbers because ever solution to the attempts at decryption would give back random numbers. That is the real challenge of decrypting computer data. Unless you already know what you are looking for and how to interpret it all you ever have is random bits, even if you stumble on the right decryption. There is much more to it than just computing horsepower.

[ctdonath2]

Quantum mechanics is a very different way of thinking about how stuff works.

Rather than a bit being 100% 'true' or 100% 'false', the bit has an X% chance of being 'true' and (1-X)% chance of being 'false'. Bizzare, but that's what real physics does on a really small scale.

Start with that strange way of thinking about things, and compound multiple bits - just as modern computers start with a 'true/false' bit, and compound things from there.