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Personally I find quantum computers really impressive, and they havent been given its righteous hype.
I know they won't be something everyone has in their house but it will greatly improve some services.
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this post was submitted on 21 Aug 2024
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Btw: What a quantum computer can reliably do these days, is tell you 21 is 3 x 7. And it takes hours and quite some traditional computing to do that.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Integer_factorization_records#Records_for_efforts_by_quantum_computers
We've progressed a bit further than that. But for anyone interested in actual applications for quantum computers... They'll have to wait. It's research at this point. We're making progress one step at a time. But so far no one has even demostrated we're able to scale those computers to a useful size.
So I'd say we're somewhere close to the origin of the axes. Or on a different graph for research that's still science fiction. Together with nuclear fusion power plants, thorium cars, space ships and hypothetical battery chemistry that'll make our electric cars go 5000 miles and not degrade over time.
[Edit: The Wikipedia Article: Quantum comuting also has some good references.]
What exactly is holding QC back right now? Does it require near room-temp superconductivity to become viable or is it just in research phase right now?
I remember that AI/ML was held back mainly because of compute power to price ratio.
There are a few different physical systems that people are trying to build quantum computers with. Superconducting loops are one of the most promising ones, because of a halfway decent decoherence rate. And yeah, superconducts needing near 0K temperature to operate is a problem. It's just hard to scale up while everything needs to be so cold. Room-temp superconductivity would be a huge advantage.
But even then, the decoherence rates are still too high for any long quantum computation. Last I heard, the best qubits are maybe barely getting to good enough errors rates that quantum error correction would be possible - which is great, but 'possible' and 'practical' still have a significant gap between them.
So in short, basically everything about the hardware needs to be better; and its just very very hard. Probably too hard to ever achieve the dream of having arbitrary quantum computation. (But there is always the possibility of some big new idea that makes everything work better.)
That's not entirely true. There are companies right now with prototypes solving real world problems.
If you have a concrete example I'd love to hear it
Sandbox AQ is one I've heard about. Pretty sure they are at least at the prototype stage.
That certainly counts as hype. But I wonder if there's any independent information out there about these computers. All I can find is self-advertising and news about investors. I mean we occasionally do get these claims that someone proved quantum supremacy. But as far as I know the validity often isn't clear or the results aren't reproduced yet. And sadly I can't skim the papers since lots of them aren't open access.
And for research it doesn't matter if you need days to cool down the computer just for one calculation. Or if most results are wrong due to noise and you have to re-do every computation on a traditional computer to check which results are correct. But I'd expect it takes them years or decades from a protopype like that to something actually useful. And as of now we haven't even solved superconductivity or the temperatures or decoherence. So I'm always a bit careful with these claims frome the quantum startups.
And does the company you mentioned actually own a quantum computer prototype? Because it seems their focus is writing algorithms/software.
https://www.sandboxaq.com/solutions/aqnav
This is their only product on the market which has quantum in their product description. It apparently uses "quantum sensors" to provide location information. I don't know how it works. I think they have made a hard shift in their strategy in the last 2 years by offering AI solutions instead.
Edit: From their Youtube comment
Looks like they do! I'd only heard about them in passing, but here's an article: https://www.mdpi.com/1424-8220/24/16/5402
That article talks about a bedside magnetometer device, used to measure the heartbeat of a person. I can't find any reference to quantum computers ๐
I appreciate the conversation, but it does seem like you're dismissing everything to fit with your narrative. Quantum computing is absolutely a new and emerging field, I was just trying to showcase that it's farther than 21 divided by 7. From wikipedia, https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Magnetocardiography, MCGs are pretty much by definition a quantum sensor. The technical aspects of the paper linked goes in to how their device is different and why it does not require cryogenic cooling.
Not at all. On the contrary, I'd love to learn some more about it. That's why I'm asking all these questions. The thing is, we're talking about something here (quantum computers) and you're saying they have one. And then you go on talking about an entirely different subject, saying MCG is useful and they bought some SQUID sensors... Of course I'm dismissing that. Since it has nothing to do with the conversation we're having?! I don't even disagree. Quantum effects certainly exist. And I bet measuring small magnetic fields is super useful in many applications. But what's that got to do with the question I asked?
Ah, I think I misunderstood the conversation, then. I apologize for that. I was considering quantum sensors and other quantum computer adjacent technologies, I suppose. Not just the classic idea of a quantum computer/showing quantum supremacy.
That's alright. I learned something anyways. Maybe I'm a bit overly cautios with these companies. I mean they even combine two of the buzzwords that attract investors... "AI" and "Quantum"... But I don't know much about the topic. Usually we have some classical signal processing available to handle sensor data. But AI can do things like imaging and finding patterns well. I can see how there might be some synergy between the two fields.
Does these "companies" includes the one that were outed for just doing computation on plain old processors and claiming they had made huge breakthrough in quantum computing?
Not the one I was thinking about. Sandbox AQ is the one that came to mind.