16 qubit Quantum Processor in Vancouver

[Thrilla]

I went to the event today, about 300 people showed up (they thought it was gonna be less than 100 lol). I arrived 5min late and had to sit on the floor for 2 hours... didn't learn much, it's pretty much the company history, vision, you can find the rest on the internet including a video interview with the havard guy.



Some notes:

• It took them 2 days to develop their demo softwares to run on quantum hardware.
• 32 qubit processor in Q1 2008, 512 qubit in Q2 2008, and 1024 qubit in Q3 2008.
• Right now the qubits are connected to its neighbors, they're developing connections to many qubits other than just neighbors to increase performance.
• The sodoku demo took them an afternoon to develop.
• Instead of active error checking, the quantum processor run the calculation a few times and check answers, checking answers is faster that finding errors.
• Current 16 qubit processor is about 100 times slower than digital computers today.
• The processor is soaked in liquid helium then further cooled by a heat pump (from my understanding) to 5mK.
• As of today, quantum processor does not replace digital computer, however, they interact with each other to make more complex applications possible.
• The company thinks Moore's law still to be true.
• Geordie the presenter liked the caffeine molecue, which I needed cuz of 6 hours of sleep for 2 days lol...
• They used Linux KDE desktop to communicate!! Possibly with beryl as well.

Good news, they did a live demo.
Bad news, the processor is in a dewer with liquid helium in Burnaby office.


See for yourself, pic/vid


Structure Search Part 1
Structure Search Part 2
Solving Sodoku

[[XC] gomeler]

Very interesting, I just wonder if this was all happening real time or not. I guess we won't know until it goes under peer review.

[Thrilla]

I don't think they'd lie about it, many investors were there too. Reason why they didn't bring the actual processor was probably because its size, one of the pic (deleted it to shoot video lol, 128MB mem stick is small!) showed a man working with 2 giant dewers 3 times wider than he is, and in one of the tank contains the giant gold arm. At current stage, some errors may occur if the noise was too big.

[nn_step]

another Linux first...
But honestly it has an interesting potential and I hope that it develops nicely.
I pray to god that they don't forget to learn the lessons of the current Processor industry.

[CPLB]

Good stuff. Thanks for the first hand info Thrilla.

[Lightman]

I'm wondering if quantum processor will be able to work in higher temperatures than 5mK. Keeping truck full of liquid helium around the corner for my personal quantum computer is not that practical

[JuanFlaiter]

I'm wondering if quantum processor will be able to work in higher temperatures than 5mK. Keeping truck full of liquid helium around the corner for my personal quantum computer is not that practical

Unless your name is Vince

[XSAlliN]

Nice, maybe they'll unite with current platforms - A dual socket CPU, one Multi Core Processor + one 64 qubit Quantum Processor - I know it's a crazy Idea but hey,...crazier things had happened.

[sparkY1000]

WOW! Albeit not very practical at the moment its an amazing achievement!

[XS Janus]

They got one crazy roadmap planed!!
---32 qubit processor in Q1 2008, 512 qubit in Q2 2008, and 1024 qubit in Q3 2008.---

Better than Intels!

Q! Why do they still express themselves in these figures 32,64,512,1024--- I mean they are not bit based in cubit count --- just a habit of people I guess
________
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[cky2k6]

theyre still binary.... quibits are really a variants of bits in quantum computing.

[Baldrick]

That looks like one awesome investment!