Quantum computer unveiled

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CmdrFly

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http://www.dailytech.com/Worlds+First+Commercial+Quantum+Computer+Demonstrated/article6102.htm

Canadian firm D-Wave Systems unveiled and demonstrated today what it calls “the world's first commercially viable quantum computer.” Company officials announced the technology at the Computer History Museum in Mountain View, California in a demonstration intended to show how the machine can run commercial applications and is better suited to the types of problems that have stymied conventional (digital) computers.

The demonstration of the technology was held at the Computer History Museum, but the actual hardware remained in Burnaby, BC where it was being chilled down to 5 millikelvin, or minus 273.145 degrees Celsius (colder than interstellar space), with liquid helium.
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Go Canada!

But seriously, this is a bit of a concern. Current encryption protocols used for high-security communications (for example, bank transactions) use 256- or 512-bit algorithms.

What that means is (and I may be wrong here, going off old readings) every packet sent betweeen, for example, CIBC and RBC (Canadian Imperial Bank of Commerce / Royal Bank of Canada) is encrypted with basically a password of 256- or 512-bit "characters" (technically, states: 0 or 1). Each side already knows the password, and they use this to rapidly decrypt the packets and process the data within.

Why? It would your typical Joe at home approximately 2,000 years to crack a 512-bit algorithm. That's considering your average Joe at home uses a Cray X-1 supercomputer, which cost about 2mil each (for the base model) if I remember correctly.

Quantum computers, on the other hand, are somewhat... exponential. Each moving electron in a quantum CPU can change it's state (0, 1, or "0+1" which is impossible for a common CPU to accomplish) based on it's neighbouring electron states.

Bottom line, a single quantum computer of very low qubit (quantum bit) count is capable of cracking a 512-bit algorithm in a matter of minutes. Joe can toss his Cray X-1 and pick up one of these babies for processing capabilities that is literally thousands of times faster than today's beefiest industrial processor array.

This is all nearly impossible to explain and twice as difficult to understand. I am by no means a knowledgeable resource for it, but I understand enough that I can drop my jaw at this news. Quantum computers have been an awe of mankind since quantum mechanics were understood well enough to see that it could be applied to computing.

Comparing a common CPU to a quantum CPU, in terms of processing power, is like comparing a camel to a teleporter in terms of travel time.
 
utterly ridiculous...
 
I would have thought they'd get a molecular computer working first, but a quantum computer is pretty cool. Never thought I'd see one so soon, if ever.

Yeah, security is a concern, but it always has been as technology improves. The only difference now is that this is a HUGE leap forward in processing power, whereas before they could develop new security as power slowly increased now they won't have much time to do so.
 
I'm not an insider for any security-related releases, but I doubt they've even begun to code 2048-bit algorithms.

By the time quantum computers are purchasable by any commercial entity, they're going to need algorithms in the megabit range to have security scale to today's standards.

But perhaps this is one of those cases where you need the tools to make the tool press... maybe now that they can crunch numbers that high, they can write algorithms scaled to such lengths.
 
cool o.O;

Wonder when that will be cheap enough to use in home computers though... lol
 
Yeah, it's going to change security measures drastically; with a quantum computer you could just overpower any current defenses easily and break in. If this becomes easily available, then computer security is going to be hosed for a few years.
 
Uzor said:
Wonder when that will be cheap enough to use in home computers though... lol
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A decade at least, I'd imagine. But if that's the ultimate goal, this also throws SMP out the window. Intel's boasting of 80-core CPUs is childs play now.
 
Quantum theory itself argues with science. In terms or quantum physics, they believe Albert Einstein was a huge step backwards for mankind, and how Quantum theory is God's technology.

I read about that when i was researching the Angelina V. A free energy machine being developed by Dr. Chukanov. Who is being powered by a Canadian comapny. The Machine is based on Quantam machanics, which defies all of the worlds top scientists very beliefs that what he is doing is impossible. On top of that he already has a working prototype.

Quantum computers will probably be capable of doing things we could not even think of making it do. It would be interesting to see AI based software to take advantage of the quantum computer. It would have to be a creative AI though which is unlikely at this point in time
 
Yeah no shit, Quantum technology is the future. It flatly contradicts all the known rules when it comes to science and technology, and how the world works, they do things we can't even imagine.
At the end of the nineteenth century scientists were pretty convinced that the study of physics had ended, no big discoveries left to be made, only details. Then Rentkin(sp?) discovered X-rays, and some other dude found that a piece of uranium ore emited something that fogged photographic plates, and the electron was discovered. No one thought that in 5 years there complacent view of the world would be completely upended.
If you were to tell a physicist in 1899, that in 1999, moving images would trasmitted into homes all over the world via satellites in the sky, or that bombs of unimaginable power would threaten the human race, or that people would be able to comminucate with each other no matter where they were on earth in a matter of seconds with the help of a tool weighing only a few ounces, he would think you were insane. Prevailing scientific theory said these things and many others that we have today were impossible.
In a few hundered years, hell, in 50 years, the world will have completely changed from what it is today. Technology is moving way too fast for it's own good imo. We need to learn to cope with the technology we have before creating more.
 
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Excalibr said:
In a few hundered years, hell, in 50 years, the world will have completely changed from what it is today. Technology is moving way too fast for it's own good imo. We need to learn to cope with the technology we have before creating more.
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...and thus, The Matrix was born...

The only thing I'm worried about is true, independant, self-conscious AI. That scares the living dung out of me.

Everything else is discovered, unveiled to the rich for personal pleasure, then eventually filtered down to us commoners after a good 5 years. I mean, look at the Internet - arguably the greatest invention of all time, yet it was in use approximately 10 years before the first (non government-paid) civilian could tap it.

D-Wave's business model is to "rent" their quantum computers out on an hourly basis. Researchers and agencies dealing with classified data will be paying out the nose for this for at least a couple of years, I doubt they'll be on the desktop for at least 7 years. Even then, you'll likely be looking at a minimum of 5 digits to buy one and you will probably need to have a good chunk of floor space reserved for it.
 
CmdrFly said:
The only thing I'm worried about is true, independant, self-conscious AI. That scares the living dung out of me.
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Word.

I watch things on the discovery channel and etc. about AI bots the military is developing and it's just like....wtf? Has the military never seen the Terminator? Or half of the other sci-fi movies out there? Srsly, someone should send those movies to em and tell em to knock this shit off. Don't they realize that when you give non-human beings the capacity to make their own decisions and take other people's life into their own hands without regard for consequence or a moral conscious to guide them that shit could very easily hit the fan?
 
I think if we had quantum computes at our disposal, we wouldn't need another computer for the rest of our lives.

As for artificial intelligence, becoming more cleverly designed, that is not so far away. Reason why i'm always egging on Sony is because they already have an independent AI that does whatever it's told to do, so long as they are nice to it. You can also hold entertaining conversations with it.

http://vids.myspace.com/index.cfm?fuseaction=vids.individual&videoid=1585937905

http://vids.myspace.com/index.cfm?fuseaction=vids.individual&videoid=1585916829

Sony discontinued their robotics division for now. But they are making a super computer to do calculations on the petaflop scale, (That's quadrillions of calculations per second), and have plans to use the Qrio's artificial intelligence as a means to achieve even further potential. Surely Sony plans to make this machine like IBM's Roadrunner super computer, which is the worlds fastests. That one is comprised of over 16,000 AMD cores working together.

If Sony succeeds to make one freaked out AI, it would not be possible to make such a thing portable anytime soon. Although if they were to utalize quantum computers, the end result for hardware would be more compact so to speak.

-Computers in the traditional and current sense, we do not fully understand. A programer uses software to make software, and a majority of them do not know how to make software from absolute scratch, nor do they know how it all started.

-Quantum computing. That beats the hell out of me, because no one on earth understands the reasoning behind quantum theory, yet we have computers that claim to utalize such mechanics.

Quantum mechanics is something we will tamper with, even though it does not make sense, we'll be sure to utlize the results somehow.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DfPeprQ7oGc
 
I think it's still in distant future where quantum computer will ever be available to the market. Given that, most quantum computer labs are in the clean rooms (the one you need to wear suits like astronauts to go in).

I've never really grasp the concept of quantum science throughout my college life, quantum computer deals with qu-bit stuff(sp?) etc.. Yea, it will probably feasible in distant future in forms of domestic computers...

And about the self-growing and learning AI, i don't think it is possible for current date algorithm in the computer language. At least, i haven't heard anything about it.

As for now, Nanotechnoly rules! :) Glad i pick it up ^^v
 
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I don't really get all this computer talk, but it sounds really powerful :O

How much do you suppose 1 of these would cost a company buying it?
 
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