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Why do quantum computers look like gorgeous golden chandeliers?
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this post was submitted on 06 Jul 2024
201 points (97.6% liked)
No Stupid Questions
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Because that's the cooling system required to run the thing. It requires more toxic coolant, that will eventually end up in the ocean, than several hundred supercomputer megaclusters and sucks more power than a thousand suburbs.
Helium is not toxic and it sure as fuck isn't going in the ocean after it escapes a quantum computer.
It's also one of the most abundant elements in the universe
But it is difficult to acquire here on earth.
As uranium and thorium naturally decay underground, they produce some helium as well. That’s why you can literally make a helium mine. On earth it’s also a finite resource, because once released into the atmosphere, it will eventually escape the atmosphere and end up in space.
Congrats on getting upvotes for this utter bullshit, none of which is substantiated in the article you linked.
Edit- this was at +15 when I first saw it.
I am just now realizing: Baroque In Mind... Broken mind? Maybe they're a troll.
I'm prepared to be proven wrong on this, as my exposure to quantum computer cooling systems has been super brief, but as far as I know there are no toxic coolants.
The pre cooler is a Pulse Tube Refrigerator, and the main cooler is a Dilution Refrigerator. Those both use helium, and that stuff floats out into space. I doubt it's going into the ocean. Here's another article that talks about the operation.
Like I said though, my exposure was brief. Unfortunately we didn't land any projects with the supercomputer people 😞. I'm always down to learn more about niche topics though. Makes me super fun at parties. If you have good sources shoot them my way. I couldn't find anything in my 5 ish minutes of web searching.
Wrong. I breathed in some helium once and it made my voice all high pitched which threatened my fragile masculinity. Very toxic.
(/s...)
Never worked much with cryogenics, but the one thing I learned was to never get in an elevator with (large quantities of) liquid nitrogen
if the elevator stops it can displace the oxygen and that's...kinda bad.
Yeah, totes. Scentless non-toxic gases can still be deadly by merit of not being oxygen.
The only recreational octave-shifting gas I indulge in is Sulfur Hexafluoride. Bolsters the ol' baritone.
That's no bueno for the environment.
I just looked it up and...
Umm wtf? Why are we selling this stuff in compressed air cans ? Even methane is "only" 30x more potent than CO2 .
3M made a great alternative I actually tried to get my company into, Novec 4710... But turns out they've stopped making it.
The bitch about SF6 is that it's so stable (as required, to resist high voltage electric breakdown) that it also lasts way, way long in the atmosphere.
Yeah man, I don't know. I think we need to just use less energy, as a species.
I believe you may have misread your own source.
If this was the basis for your saying this…
… then you misread AND misstated.
Misread: this “thousands of homes” energy use was in reference to Frontier, which is not a quantum computer but based on more conventional architecture, the kind the article goes on to say might eventually be improved upon by quantum computing. Eg:
Misstated: “thousands of homes” != “thousands of suburbs.”
A suburb is not a home but a a collection of homes, a region of a city even. See definition:
So in your zeal to make your point you demonized quantum computers, which could be a solution to the problem you’re ostensibly so concerned about, and in the process you misstated a metric by at least one order of magnitude.
So yeah… I don’t know what to tell you. You really messed up here. Your problem is with LLMs and big compute, not necessarily quantum computers.
Good stuff! I rescind my comment and defer to all your corrections.
A quantum computer using current technologies can't scale to that size. Enormous advances over what is now currently possible would be required to get it to that number of qubits, and then the whole issue of cooling can be revisited.
Wow, that is insane! But it's also amazing that it has been able to solve problems that humans haven't been able to solve in over 50 years.
What are you talking about? Most of these things are experimental and none of them have solved a single fucking thing.
From the linked article
They did not say that was achieved with quantum computing
Eta - here is a more suitable quote from the article: