What's New in Quantum Computing? 2023 UpdateShe makes it sound as if a lot has happened in the last two years, but not really.
There is still no true qubit. A researcher may claim to have a functional equivalent of 50 qubits, but he does not even have one logical qubit.
There is still no convincing demonstration of quantum supremacy. Some say quantum advantage, but no convincing example of that either.
There is still no quantum computer to solve a problem. The claims are based on generating random numbers in a way that is hard to simulate.
Compare all this to the hype reported here, such as Google's Neven's Law, which said in June 2019 that quantum computers were advancing doubly exponentially. If that were true, then we would have a convincing example of quantum supremacy by now.
Unless it is impossible, of course.
Happy Columbus Day. The 1492 Columbus discovery of the Americas was one of the greatest events in the history of the world. Without that, where would science be?
Yes yes yes, we definitely need to continue to fund development of machines that might be able to do something, we can't exactly say what, in about ten to twenty more years with continuous funding. We are completely confident in this assessment of the STRONG possibility of a qubit having a theoretical potential to maybe do something remotely useful eventually that we still haven't demonstrated with a single true functioning qubit that doesn't require huge amounts of linguistic torture exploiting a theoretical explanation of a mathematical uncertainty that very closely resembles to the point of approaching zero the Improbability Drive from Douglas Adams 'Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy.'....
ReplyDelete... Oh yeah, then once we actually have a single functioning qubit that works as advertised without a hitch, we need make a computer that uses a whole bunch of them, how many we will need is as of yet, technically, also undetermined, so we need additional funding just to determine how many as of yet non-existent qubits will be required to solve some reeeeealy important problems better than a magic eight ball with about the same level of certainty.
Amen.
Everyone talks about building a quantum computer because it would be so 'useful', then oodles are spent to supposedly build one (but not actually), once completed they spin the damn thing like a merry-go-round for bragging rights about quantum supremacy...and then nothing ever happens, they don't solve miraculous problems or really do anything noteworthy with it...because they have to focus their energies to build an even bigger quantum computer because...mutter mutter...reasons.
ReplyDeleteQCs are clearly impossible because of basic thermodynamic speed limits and infinite-dimensional field theory: https://docs.google.com/document/d/1a4Cxgl-XqGmwJo7PvrLju_Z-q-xQ-wkBsmEgTbmx61o/edit?usp=sharing
ReplyDeleteEverything has quantum supremacy. That doesn't mean that a computer speeds up when we aren't looking.
The argument from internal energy is utterly definitive:
https://www.physicsoverflow.org/45750/thermodynamic-speed-limit-of-quantum-computing