IBM Says Practical Quantum Computers are Close
IBM researchers claim they are now close to have access to basic technologies that would allow them to build a "minimum" quantum computer.
According to the company, scientists have found ways to retain the integrity of quantum bits (qubits) and reduce computation errors as a result. The solution appear to be superconducting qubits that are constructed via traditional silicon fabrication techniques and hold the potential to scale up to potentially thousands or millions of qubits one day.
"The quantum computing work we are doing shows it is no longer just a brute force physics experiment. It's time to start creating systems based on this science that will take computing to a new frontier," said IBM scientist Matthias Steffen, who manages the IBM Research team that works on quantum computing systems. The vision of quantum computing is to enable computers to do "millions of computations at once" with a single qubit. According to IBM, a 250-qubit system "contains more bits of information than there are atoms in the universe." In contrast to a traditional bit, which can either have the value "0" or "1", a qubit can have "0", "1" and both values at the same time.
While there is a clear vision to build a quantum computer, scientists are dealing with a number of substantial roadblocks to realize such a device. One key problem remain interference factors that influence the controllability and reliability of qubits, such as temperature, electromagnetism and material defects. IBM said that the transition to a “three dimensional” superconducting qubit (3D qubit) allowed them to extend the time a qubit retains its state to 100 microseconds, which is a 2 to 4x improvement over previous results. It is not eternity, but IBM says the value " reaches just past the minimum threshold to enable effective error correction schemes and suggests that scientists can begin to focus on broader engineering aspects for scalability." The company has built a 3D qubit device with a 1mm qubit as part of a Sapphire chip to demonstrate its research progress.
IBM said that it believes that, in the future, a "classical" computer system will integrate quantum computing hardware to form a functional quantum computing system. The next challenges to achieve this goal will be necessary advances in communications and packaging technology.
Quantum computing is not about running CS5 faster, it is about a completely new paradigm of how computation is performed at the lowest levels. Because qubits can be in multiple states at the same time, when you perform operations on qubits you actually perform the operation on each state the qubit simultaneously occupies. In this way you are able to perform vast numbers of operations with very few qubits, but only in a probabilistic sense because of the nature of quantum mechanics. i.e. you are given a probability as a result, rather than exact numbers. With quantum computing you can solve optimization problems that couldn't even be attempted before. Ultimately quantum computing is not for the average consumer to use, but rather a tool to allow researchers and industry to perform computations that were previously impossible.
Assuming they're suggesting that Quantum processors will first exist in the system as a co-processor of sorts. Then they'll somehow include them on the same die with the rest of the main CPU. At that point it'll completely negate any need of a GPU at all. It won't be a question of 'can it play Crysis'. It'll be 'how many screens can it push running Crysis IX @ 4320p'.
holy crap, I better patent that shit so I can sue everyone in a few years.
Quantum computing is not about running CS5 faster, it is about a completely new paradigm of how computation is performed at the lowest levels. Because qubits can be in multiple states at the same time, when you perform operations on qubits you actually perform the operation on each state the qubit simultaneously occupies. In this way you are able to perform vast numbers of operations with very few qubits, but only in a probabilistic sense because of the nature of quantum mechanics. i.e. you are given a probability as a result, rather than exact numbers. With quantum computing you can solve optimization problems that couldn't even be attempted before. Ultimately quantum computing is not for the average consumer to use, but rather a tool to allow researchers and industry to perform computations that were previously impossible.
It would be a disaster for the most part.
If anything, computers today are an embarrassment to what they could have been.
By now we could have had synthetic diamond as a material for microchips due to its cost effective viability for industrial creation in 1996 (which is when the process seems to have been 'perfected'). Patents of course slowed the usage of synthetic diamonds until 2004, and it wasn't until then that semiconductors out of diamonds were made (right after the patent issue was dealt with actually).
So, barring patents aside, we could have had insanely powerful computers today that would also suck up less power than the ones we have now (coupled with the premise of non-existent temperatures).
Now, add graphene into the mix (which is 2 to 3x better than diamond in every respect) at least in some kind of hybrid form, and voila.
But of course, the market will first introduce a possible silicon/diamond hybrid, followed by a full blown diamond computer and then of course hybrid of diamond/graphene before they finally switch over to graphene entirely.
Well, maybe it won't take too long... but given how the market operates, coupled with planned obsolescence (unless we change the economic model and force them to provide the best of the best as soon as its available with upgrades in mind that doesn't break down after a short term use, and can be fully recycled) then I guess we can start see some real leaps.
IBM hasn't claimed anything more or anything less than hitting one of many milestones to make quantum computing possible. I don't thing IBM has anything to gain by exaggerating anything here, and I don't think they are going to give away proprietary information to competition just so it can be "independently confirmed" and satisfy skeptics who read the news. They would rather live and let live, and then proceed to make billions and billions of dollars later.
As far as the "scalablitly problems of QC" that you mentioned, this actually helps that situation because more stable and therefore "readable" results means that they can ease up on some of the redundancy that was previously needed in order to ensure correct results.
We can run the silicon and most GaAs qubits at room temp somewhat decently. IBM is one of the few corporations truly pursuing quantum computing, and most of the issues with QC have been known for some time. If IBM can solve the decoherence problems and develop a scalable device, they wil have basically solved the main limitations to QC.
Remember those old days where a 1 megabyte hard drive cost several thousand dollars?