'Quantum' data processor

[Sheen]

Chip the world's fastest: Burnaby firm Local company claims to have built first marketable 'quantum' data processor
Randy Boswell
CanWest News Service

Friday, February 09, 2007

A Burnaby company that claims to have built the world's first marketable
"quantum computer" -- a hyper-fast data processor touted by the firm's
founder as potentially "the most significant invention of our generation" -- has the global high-tech community buzzing ahead of its scheduled unveiling next week in California.

D-Wave Systems, a hardware developer headed by 34-year-old theoretical
physicist Geordie Rose, has issued an open invitation to all technophiles to become "an eye witness to history" at the live-link, Feb. 13 launch of the company's "16-qubit" Orion supercomputer. And the demonstration of D-Wave's "technological first" will take place at a site equal to the company's portentous claims -- the Computer History Museum in the heart of Silicon Valley.

Quantum computing devices promise to revolutionize research and
development in a host of industries -- biotechnology, pharmaceuticals
and financial services among them -- that rely on interpreting massive
amounts of information and predicting scenarios through complex
simulations.

The additional brainpower afforded by a quantum system -- which could
make calculations exponentially faster than conventional computers --
has been hailed by Rose as a "blueprint" for future computers.

The concept of quantum computing is that multiple calculations are
carried out simultaneously in many "parallel universes" inside the
microscopic circuitry within the central processor. Conventional
computers typically handle calculations in sequence.

Rose has said the application of quantum mechanics to computing could be
as big a human milestone as the change caused by the invention of the
printing press -- ushering in a new human era.

But experts are already duelling over the whether the machine will work.
"My gut instinct is that I doubt there is a major 'free lunch' here," Oxford University physicist Andrew Steane told Britain's Guardian newspaper Thursday. He described the prospect of a commercially viable quantum computer as akin to "claims of cold fusion."

But Seth Lloyd, a professor of mechanical engineering at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, told CanWest News Service on Thursday that D-Wave's prototype -- which is based on ideas Lloyd pioneered -- "looks like a sensible, useful" application of the theory that could seriously kickstart the quantum age of computing.

"They're not likely to demonstrate something unless they already know it's going to work," said Lloyd, noting that four-qubit processors have been tested successfully in laboratories.

Lloyd and one of his graduate students at MIT devised the "adiabatic"
acceleration system, employed by D-Wave, that theoretically prevents a
quantum computer from crashing under a deluge of data.
The computer's critical components are 16 all-but-invisible micro-circuits made of niobium, a rare metal that has super-efficient, hyper-conductive properties when cooled to an extremely low temperature -- nearly absolute zero, or -270 C.

The 16 quantum bits or "qubits" fit on a microchip smaller than the head of a pin. But the cooling solution for the computer -- liquid helium -- is held in a vault about the size of a large household freezer.

(c) The Vancouver Sun 2007

[Anry]

да... они уже в прошлом месяце отмечали это знаменательное событие

[ura]

Может если пентиум до абсолютного нуля охладить он и не такие частоты держать сможет?

[sobomax]

Может если пентиум до абсолютного нуля охладить он и не такие частоты держать сможет?

Если до абсолютного нуля охладить то он ничего не сможет держать.

Да и при чем тут частоты? Принцип работы абсолютно другой.

-Maxim

[Stanislav]

Может если пентиум до абсолютного нуля охладить он и не такие частоты держать сможет?

Он просто по мамке растечется - про сверхтекучесть слышали???

[ura]

Принцип - сверхпроводимость некоего редкого элемента при нулевой температуре.

Вывод - очень дорогая технология. Наверное поэтому монстры и не дергаются, ждут подтверждения - proof of concept. Я не сомневаюсь, что в природе достаточно сверхпроводников более дешевых и практичных.

Однако задумка хорошая, спорить никто не станет.

[sobomax]

Ссылочка на доклад этих чуваков в стендфорде.

http://stanford-online.stanford.edu/cou ... 80-300.asx

-Maxim

[Котяр]

вот на мембране уже тиснули