[HN Gopher] IBM unveils 127-qubit quantum processor ___________________________________________________________________ IBM unveils 127-qubit quantum processor Author : ag8 Score : 216 points Date : 2021-11-16 18:46 UTC (4 hours ago) (HTM) web link (newsroom.ibm.com) (TXT) w3m dump (newsroom.ibm.com) | rbanffy wrote: | IBM has been making the coolest-looking (and coolest) | computers... https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=a0glxDw700g | ag8 wrote: | It's crazy that a lot of the freezers they use, that can get | temperatures down to a few millikelvin, are commodities at this | point. You could go and buy one if you wanted to for $50k! | kranke155 wrote: | Amazing! | baq wrote: | > IBM Quantum System Two is designed to work with IBM's future | 433-qubit and 1,121 qubit processors. | | what's the smallest _useful_ (as in, 'non-toy', or maybe 'worth | buying time on') quantum computer? | krastanov wrote: | If you are a researcher from another field that just wants to | contract out the computation of a numerical solution to some | chemistry problem infeasible on a classical supercomputer, a | million "physical" qubits is a fairly reasonable guestimate. | | If you are a quantum computation person developing near term | applications, you probably would already start getting excited | with a 100 (sufficiently long-lived) qubits. | | The "sufficiently long-lived" is the problematic part. Every | lab has its own bespoke figure of merit (quantum volume, CLOPS, | fidelities, etc). It is basically impossible to compare devices | without being a researcher in the field for now. But at some | point a novel drug or material will be developed thanks to a | quantum computer and then we should really get excited about | renting time on these devices. | PeterisP wrote: | What near term applications would be possible with just a 100 | long-lived qubits? | sz4kerto wrote: | For example routing algorithms used to change railroad | traffic in case of a problem with a junction or track. | krastanov wrote: | With long-lived ones, gosh, a ton. When you hear a | researcher talk about "logical qubit" or less formally | "long-lived qubit" they mean a reliable abstract | computational component. When we talk about "physical | qubits" we mean the unreliable real implementations like | the one from this article. A rough rule of thumb is that | you need a 1000 physical qubits to make one logical qubit. | | With 100 logical qubits (i.e. 100k physical qubits), you | can start thinking about running chemistry simulations on | the edge of what is possible with classical supercomputers. | That is what I am excited about. There are also | optimization problems, and some pretentious claims about | quantum machine learning, which I am certain would be fun, | but I am not as excited about. | | With 100 physical qubits, you can start testing non-trivial | control schemes, circuit compilations, error correction | methods, and many other building blocks. | mchusma wrote: | Is it accurate to say the primary use of this is likely to | design further quantum computers? | krastanov wrote: | In a way, yes. I usually call such devices "technology | demonstrators". But I am certain there would be researchers | offended by such a trivialization of their work. | haneefmubarak wrote: | Yeah the R&D that goes into this is mainly part of the | longer term effort to make increasingly large quantum | computers. | | In case you meant it the other way: the number of qubits | here is still far too small for any real world application, | including for simulations that would help design larger | chips. | [deleted] | snarkypixel wrote: | A real random number generator, this is basically the "hello | world" on a quantum computer. | cgearhart wrote: | Kinda depends on what you want to use it for. If you want to | simulate a physical system then you need at least as many | qubits as the system has (and an understanding that such a | simulation will have terrible noise). If you want to do | something "useful" like run Shor's algorithm to factor large | encryption keys then it would take millions of qubits and | quantum error correction. | | To me the significance of this kind of increase in number of | qubits is that many detractors of quantum computing had argued | we'd never even reach this point, so I am slightly more | optimistic that we'll eventually reach the scale required for | reliable abstract computations. | xxpor wrote: | Why 433 and 1121? In classical computers, everyone knows why a | lot of things are done in powers of 2. Is there a different | base number useful for quantum computation that I don't know | about (for example, is this an integer multiple of a specific | sin/cos value)? | krastanov wrote: | Not really. For this particular device they are laying out | the physical qubits in some geometric lattice constrained by | where they can put traces for microwave inductors and | capacitors, and it just happens that this is the convenient | size at which to try to build the lattice. | bnjemian wrote: | It depends on your use case. By some measure, the Google | collaboration that demonstrated a time crystal was a practical | quantum advantage in the space of condensed matter research. | But in that space, _practical_ means validating theory with | experiment. That 's a _much_ lower bar for a quantum advantage | than, say, showing that you 've implemented a quantum algorithm | that can, with high statistical likelihood (e.g. an error rate | of 1/10e5), provide fleet routing solutions for a logistics | company that are 10% more efficient than any known classical | routing algorithm. | Decabytes wrote: | I wonder how fast quantum computers are progressing. Like are we | seeing similar increases in performance that we saw with silicon | computers back in the 60s->Now? Or is it slower due to the | intense cooling we need to give them? | mattwilsonn888 wrote: | Where does this sit on the "applicably breaking secure classical | cryptography" spectrum? | krastanov wrote: | Many years away. A good guestimate is that you need 1M physical | qubits factor numbers fast. | | Also, there is classical public-key cryptography (i.e. | encryption algorithms that run efficiently on today's classical | computers) that is not susceptible to quantum computers. And | symmetric cryptography has never been susceptible to quantum | computers. | saalweachter wrote: | So if we draw an exponential curve from 53 to 127 qubits, | we're looking at 13 doublings or about 2 decades? | | Neat! | cgearhart wrote: | It's completely irrelevant to that problem. Breaking crypto | requires quantum error correction, which we think requires | thousands (perhaps hundreds of thousands) of physical qubits | per logical qubit. And the operations of the computation | require many more logical qubits than just representing the | target value. | | It's still gonna be awhile. But this is still pretty | interesting because a lot of the detractors of quantum | computing thought there was strong evidence that we'd never | even manage to get this far. So it seems _slightly_ more likely | that large scale abstract quantum computation is feasible. | bnjemian wrote: | Gidney and Ekera have you covered: | https://arxiv.org/abs/1905.09749 | | Short answer, this probably won't even register as a pitstop on | the technical pathway. | StLCylone wrote: | There are probably entities saving encrypted data right now for | when that day arrives. Brings up many interesting lines of | thought beyond "is it breakable right now?" | krastanov wrote: | Does it really though? Every secure system design pretty much | assumes that the cryptographic standard will be broken in a | few decades. Is there really any secret today that would be | problematic if made public 30 years in the future? And that | would not have been made public by some other method anyway? | Maursault wrote: | > Is there really any secret today that would be | problematic if made public 30 years in the future? | | Sure. For one, that all the major earthquakes in the last | 30 years, resulting tsunamis, destruction and loss of life, | were manmade and intentionally caused by, say, Nabisco. | Also, it would be a little shocking to the public if it | were revealed there are no humans left, only alien-hybrids. | krastanov wrote: | Any idea where one can find qubit lifetimes and gate fidelities? | The classical RF engineering behind controlling that many qubits | is certainly great, but it is hard to get excited about the | "quantumness" without these figures of merit. | _8091149529 wrote: | You can create a free account at IBM Quantum and peek at the | latest calibration data there. | | Edit: Only a fraction of the qubits of the 127 qubit system | were calibrated when I looked. | one_off_comment wrote: | Aw, they couldn't stuff one more in there to get a power of two? | (I know it doesn't really matter for qubits, but still.) | Scene_Cast2 wrote: | Reminds me of computing history with vacuum tube computers the | size of a room. Even if the actual hardware isn't practical | today, the lessons learned will still apply in the future. | [deleted] | davidw wrote: | Very press-releasey, which I guess is fair given that it is, | indeed, a press release. I'd love to hear more context from | people knowledgeable in the field. | adrian_mrd wrote: | As someone who knows little about quantum computing, what is the | significance of 127-qubits? (as opposed to classical computing's | 128 bits, as a reference) | klyrs wrote: | Thus far, only D-Wave has truly scalable control over their | qubits. They accomplished that by moving to an entirely | different computational regime. Until gate-model efforts find a | solution to scalable control, every "we built a bigger chip" | announcement is a milestone in microwave engineering. | krastanov wrote: | Nothing. It is just how many they were able to manufacture and | control reliably. Probably were aiming for some power-of-two | number but had a couple of defects. | space_fountain wrote: | As someone who is very much a lay person, my understanding is | the qubitsness of a quantum computer is closer to the ram | capacity of a classical computer than anything | tcgv wrote: | Computational power for quantum computers goes as 2^n, where n | is the number of qubits, so unlike classical computing this | machine should be orders of magnitude superior to Google's | 53-quibit Sycamore. | | If you wanna learn more about the subject, a couple of years | back I wrote a introduction to quantum computing for | programmers which you may find useful: | | - https://thomasvilhena.com/2019/11/quantum-computing-for- | prog... | 7373737373 wrote: | What does "computational power" mean though? Which specific | problem can these systems solve that classical computers | cannot, or more effectively? | tcgv wrote: | Roughly, computational power = number of operations per | cycle. | | Classical computers can only perform a number of operations | per cycle linearly proportional to the amount of hardware | architecture available (ex: one core, two cores, quad- | core). Quantum computers can take advantage of | superposition and entanglement to, given some restrictions, | perform multiple operations per cycle, proportional to | "two" to the power of the number of qubits. | bnjemian wrote: | That's not quite it. The power of a QC comes from | modeling an exponentially large probabilistic state space | using entanglement and superposition. The operations | performed by a QC are also different, they can be analog | (arbitrary rotations), but circuit depths (i.e. the | number of operations) are still expected to be | polynomial. | | The difference is that the probabilistic state space uses | probability amplitudes, which are complex valued and can | be positive or negative, allowing for constructive and | destructive interference over the probabilities tied to | each state. Orchestrate the right kind of interference, | and for some problems, you have an algorithm that outputs | a solution to that problem with (relatively high | probability) in time that, depending on the problem, may | be exponentially faster. Examples of those problems | include prime factorization/discrete logarithms (Shor's | algorithm) and ones in quantum simulation (hence the | interest in QC by chemists, physicists, etc.) | tcgv wrote: | Thanks for detailing. I was explaining in laymen terms, | using less technical details, with some reservations | ("roughly" and "given some restrictions"). | | > Orchestrate the right kind of interference, and for | some problems, you have an algorithm that outputs a | solution to that problem with (relatively high | probability) in time that, depending on the problem, may | be exponentially faster. | | Exactly. Given some restrictions, it's possible to | implement algorithms that are equivalent to performing an | exponentially large amount of classical operations per | "cycle". | | > Examples of those problems include prime | factorization/discrete logarithms (Shor's algorithm) | | Indeed. I provide an implementation of the Deutsch-Jozsa | algorithm [1][2] based in my own quantum computing | simulator that I linked in my blog post (in the original | comment) to address this. | | [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Deutsch%E2%80%93Jozsa_a | lgorith... | | [2] https://github.com/TCGV/QuantumSim/blob/master/Tcgv.Q | uantumS... | bastardoperator wrote: | Can it run doom though? | _trampeltier wrote: | Can you flip qbits with rowhammer? | AnthonyMouse wrote: | For the first time ever, the answer appears to be no. A truly | unprecedented machine. | relaunched wrote: | Qubits? Wanna impress me? Tell me about the great strides you've | made in fault tolerance. | Thaxll wrote: | IBM is dead change my mind. | RivieraKid wrote: | Tangential question, what are the areas of technology where we | can expect to see substantial progress or breakthroughs within | 2030, i.e. what are the most exciting areas to follow and look | forward to? Here's my list: | | - Nuclear fusion (Helion, ZAP, TAE, Tokamak Energy, CFS, | Wendelstein). | | - Self-driving cars. | | - New types of nuclear fission reactors. | | - Spaceflight (SpaceX Starship). | | - Supersonic airplanes (Boom). | | - Solid state batteries. | | - Quantum computing. | | - CPUs and GPUs on sub-5nm nodes. | | - CRISPR-based therapies. | | - Longevity research. | FridayoLeary wrote: | I hate to tell you, but your list looks like it came straight | out of the 1970's:) | | - Spaceflight (SpaceX Starship). | | - Supersonic airplanes (Boom). | | Been there, done that. | TheMagicHorsey wrote: | Delivery drones: Wing, Amazon, Zipline, Volansi, etc. | | Synthetic fuels. | teryyy wrote: | Synthetic meat of all kinds, ARM based processors, deep | learning + AI, agtech/vertical farming/etc. | api wrote: | I'd say fusion is a sleeper. You still have that stupid "30 | years away and always will be" meme but there is real progress | being made. Fusion would completely change the world, though | not overnight because it would take another decade or so before | it would advance enough to be cost competitive. | | I'm semi-optimistic about space flight and longevity. I think | Starship will fly, but I wouldn't be surprised if some of its | most ambitious specs get dialed back a bit. I'll be somewhat | (but not totally) surprised if the "chopsticks" idea works. | | We will probably see aging-reversal to some limited extent | within 10-20 years, but the effect will probably be more to | extend "health span" than add that much to life span. (I'll | take it.) | | I'll add one not on the list: the use of deep learning to | discover theories in areas like physics and math that have not | occurred to humans and maybe are not capable of being found by | ordinary human cognition. | | Wildcard, but plausible: detection of a strong extrasolar | biosphere candidate using JWST or another next-generation | telescope. Detection would be based on albedo absorption | spectra, so we wouldn't know for sure. Talk of an interstellar | fly-by probe would start pretty quickly. | | I wouldn't list sub-5nm as "far out." We will almost definitely | get sub-5nm. AFAIK 3nm is in the pipeline. Sub-1nm is "far out" | and may or may not happen. | paxys wrote: | Sadly I'd also qualify most of these as things that consumers | are overly excited about but will never reach their expected | potential (at least in our lifetimes) due to technological | limits. Same as flying cars, 3D TVs, 3D printing, household | robots, holograms, AR glasses. | kingcharles wrote: | 3D TVs will come of age once autostereoscopic displays reach | the right level of quality. After being blown away by my | first glimpse of a display in around 1998 I fully expected | them to be useable years ago. I guess we might still be | another "10 years" away. | | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Autostereoscopy | Hamuko wrote: | I really doubt that there's going to be huge desire for 3D | TVs at any point. People can already look at video on a 2D | display and interpret 3D visuals from it. And if you want | to be fully immersed in something, maybe you want VR | instead. | gfodor wrote: | AR glasses will hit a wall but passthrough AR will be | converged on rapidly. Starting 2022 | oezi wrote: | Any particular insight why 2022? | | Hololens 2 has shown that it isn't so easy to advance the | field. | | I don't think an Apple device is forthcoming or likely to | leapfrog. | alasdair_ wrote: | > Any particular insight why 2022? | | Facebook, Apple and others are releasing their first AR | glasses then. | gfodor wrote: | Passthrough AR isn't glasses AR, and is much more likely | to be rapidly made capable. Lynx-R launches in Q1, and | Meta's and Apple's headsets will likely use passthrough | AR next year. | | https://lynx-r.com/ | oezi wrote: | I definitely hope for something novel with video see- | through HMDs as they used to call them in 2002 [1] when I | last worked on them. Latency wasn't solved last I checked | and viewpoint offset is still an issue that throws users | off. | | [1] https://static.aminer.org/pdf/PDF/000/273/730/ar_tabl | e_tenni... | gfodor wrote: | - Psychadelics | | - VR/AR (photonic override, more specifically) | | - Fundamental physics (unlocked by tech) | tlrobinson wrote: | Can you elaborate on "photonic override"? Googling that | phrase pretty much just returns more HN comments and tweets | by you :) | gfodor wrote: | A hardware/software proxy that governs all photons you see. | walleeee wrote: | This is desirable? | MobiusHorizons wrote: | I would argue that most of the items on this list can be | subdivided into two types of hype. | | short term hype (real advances that will happen in 1-2 years, | but won't matter by 2030, because they are just a generational | iteration) | | Over-hyped far-future research. (things where the possibilities | have yet to be brought down to earth by the practical limits of | implementing them broadly / cost effectively) When these things | do happen, they tend to be a bit of a let-down, because they | don't actually provide the promised revolutionary changes. | These things basically have to be over-hyped in order to get | the necessary funding to bring them to reality. | | Of the examples you have, I am only really excited about | CRISPR, and to a lesser extent commercial spaceflight, and new | nuclear. These have promise IMO, but I also don't expect them | to be decade defining. | | Personally I don't think we know what the next breakthrough | will be yet. I expect it to take us very much by surprise, and | start out as something unthreatening which then grows to a | disruptive size / scale. | baby wrote: | I'm starting to get some fatigue about quantum computer news, and | I just dismiss them now. If there really is a valuable | breakthrough, everyone will be talking about it for months non- | stop so I won't miss it. | bawolff wrote: | That's kind of like saying, i'm tired of political news - if we | all actually die in a nuclear holocaust armegedon it will be | hard to miss. | vezycash wrote: | It's not like political news. It's like new battery tech | news. | cbozeman wrote: | Actually, what you just said is the equivalent of saying, "We | just developed a quantum computer that allows us to solve not | just every physical world question we have, but every | metaphysical one as well." | | Since you're literally comparing the end of most life on | Earth, I think its fair for me to compare the development of | a computer that provides limitless understanding. | | They're both equally ridiculous, in other words. | bnjemian wrote: | I feel like a nuclear war is a much likelier (yet _very_ | low probability) event than your computational straw man. | dekhn wrote: | This is exactly correct. The moment something important happens | in quantum computing the community will recognize it as such. | In the meantime most of us are just waiting for somebody to do | something interesting that couldn't really have been solved | (possibly approximately) on classical systems. | xondono wrote: | I can avoid thinking that as a species, QC is a bad investment. I | think we're trying just too early, like Charles Babbage. Great | idea but the world doesn't have the tech required. | | I think that if they are honest with themselves, most researchers | know they won't see the day QC are a practical reality, but | everyone is trying to become the "father of QC". | neolefty wrote: | I wonder if, at the same level of technology, quantum and | classical computers end up performing similarly -- do you need | exponentially less noise for more qubits? If so, it seems | similar to me to requiring exponentially more classical compute | power to equal it, and they kinda end up equivalent? | dr_dshiv wrote: | I hear what you are saying, but maybe on the way to the moon, | we can invent microwave ovens | snarkypixel wrote: | > The best way to predict the future is to create it | xondono wrote: | Yeah, but trying to build things too early makes them | meaningless. | | Babbage designed a computer that had essentially no impact, | because it could not be built, and by the time the tech was | around we had better ways to build computers. | | As a global effort, it may be wiser to shift focus to other | things more achievable, and try QC again in 2100 (IDK, just | some random future time). | leadingthenet wrote: | Isn't the problem, though, that you don't really know what | is, and isn't, achievable until you actually get there and | have the benefit of hindsight? | rwmj wrote: | Interesting that the number of qubits is approximately doubling | every year according to the article. | sgt101 wrote: | well Google Sycamore (53 qubits) arrived in 2019, and it's 2021 | now - so 2 years (being generous). | zoover2020 wrote: | How do we call this 'law'? | bnjemian wrote: | A quanta article (prematurely in my view), tried to dub this | Neven's law: https://www.quantamagazine.org/does-nevens-law- | describe-quan... | thehappypm wrote: | Schrodinger's shrinking cat | DeathArrow wrote: | Moore's law? | YossarianFrPrez wrote: | Perhaps: Moore's Second Law | Panoramix wrote: | So what kind of qubits is IBM going for? transmons? | filereaper wrote: | >'Eagle' is IBM's first quantum processor developed and deployed | to contain more than 100 operational and connected qubits. It | follows IBM's 65-qubit 'Hummingbird' processor unveiled in 2020 | and the 27-qubit 'Falcon' processor unveiled in 2019. | | I guess I missed last years announcement of the 65 qubit one. | | So okay we have a 127 qubit machine, what did they _do_ with it | afterwards? | | The Q3 financials were released so this article can't have been | released to pump up the stock price. | zardo wrote: | > So okay we have a 127 qubit machine, what did they do with it | afterwards? | | Characterize it's performance, review what they've learned, and | start on the next design. | | We're either thousands of qubits, or a major theoretical | breakthrough in error correction away from using a quantum | computer for something other than learning about building | quantum computers. | krastanov wrote: | In the months after such an announcement you can expect | articles with various attempts at an application to pop up on | arxiv. I am saying "attempts at an application", not because | the papers are not impressive, rather because the devices are | still too small and noisy to excite anyone but researchers in | the field. As a researcher in the field I am certainly very | excited, because the figure of merit I care about have been | drastically improved and this reinforced my belief that we will | have a device solving classically-infeasible chemistry | simulations soon (anything between 5 and 15 year ;) | dekhn wrote: | As much as I would love to see quantum computers contributing | to quantum chemistry, it's unclear that having more | computation would magically solve any actual practical real | world applied problem in chemistry. | | I assume you're saying classically infeasible to refer to the | O(n*7) scaling of some QM basis functions? | krastanov wrote: | Your assumption is correct, and your cautiousness is | warranted. I do expect the polynomial complexity to become | better with future improvements in algorithms. Either way, | it is on us fanboys to make devices that fulfill these | claims. | dekhn wrote: | Best of luck. having my skepticism disproved by the QC | folks woudl be a major win, but it's not something I'd | spend my time on. I think it makes more sense to improve | existing codes to run as fast as possible on the biggest | supercomputers we have, although even that isn't super | useful because, as far as I can tell, better chemical | simulations don't lead to better applied science in the | field of chemistry. | maaaaattttt wrote: | Would you have examples of such simulations at hand? Or links | describing some of them? I know next to nothing about quantum | computing but I've always loved a good infeasible problem. | krastanov wrote: | Feynman's 1981 "Simulating Physics with Computers" is one | of the first mentions of how it is (naively) exponentially | expensive to store on a classical computer the quantum | state of something with n degrees of freedom (a molecule | made of multiple atoms). He suggests (vaguely) the notion | of a quantum computer. https://www.google.com/search?hl=en& | q=simulating%20physics%2... | | It is less known that a Russian scientist made similar | remarks at the same time. | | This "Science" news blurb pops up on google as an intro as | well https://www.science.org/content/article/quantum- | computer-sim... . Although it makes you laugh when you | notice that the principle was suggested in 1981, formalized | in the mid 90s, initial experimental successes in late 00s, | and today we are barely simulating 3 atom molecules. In our | defense, it was a 100 years between Babbage, passing | through Turing, and getting to something like ENIAC. And a | few more decades before the PC. | selimthegrim wrote: | Yuri Manin is "way less well known"? I just spit my | coffee out when I read that. | krastanov wrote: | I apologize, what I was attempting to say was "here it is | way less known that a scientist in Russia made the same | observations at the same time". I will edit my comment. | gigel82 wrote: | No they didn't; there is no such thing as a quantum computer or a | quantum processor outside of theoretical papers. I know I'll be | downvoted by saying that (like I was last time) but that doesn't | change facts; they have a random number generator that is capable | of generating a lot of very random numbers... cool, cool, cool. | dougSF70 wrote: | I am all in for down votes. I am not a physicist but the cost | of cooling must astronomical for the output you get. CF. When | autonomous vehicle technology gets released into production it | is likely they won't make your car look like its wearing a | dunce's hat whereas when quantum computers enter production we | will still need mK temperatures for them to operate. The cost | of cooling will burn the planet up further, just so someone can | crack a SHA-256 encrypted password in seconds...random numbers | indeed. | krastanov wrote: | There are technologies that would not need the 15mK operating | temperatures, they are just in their infancy. | | The most interesting applications of quantum computing have | little to do with encryption or breaking codes. Chemistry and | optimization problems are much more exciting. | | SHA-256 is a hash, not an encryption algorithm. And quantum | computers have nothing to contribute to reversing hashes or | breaking symmetric encryption. | bnjemian wrote: | If you added one word of qualification - _practical_ quantum | computer or quantum processor - this would actually be a | reasonable position to argue. | gigel82 wrote: | No, I mean in the real sense, there is no actual quantum | processor anywhere in the world (unless some secret | organization actually built something amazing and is hiding | it). | | Not a single quantum logical gate exists that actually | behaves as described in the theory, let alone circuits of | quantum gates that do even the most basic of computation. | Actually, I'll take that one step further and say that no one | has produced a single qubit (actual logical qubit as | described in the theoretical literature), these 127 (if that) | are what they call "physical qubits" or what you and me would | call chaotic sources of uncontrolled entropy (i.e. random | number generators). | | I'm not saying quantum computing in the physical world is | impossible, I'm just saying no one has accomplished it (yet). | krastanov wrote: | Like the parent comment, your absolutism seems | unreasonable. A wave-plate is a darn-near-perfect single | qubit gate for a dual-rail encoded photonic qubit. It is | just that we can not really generate photons on demand in a | scalable way. Hence agreeing both with "there are some | small noisy unreliable quantum computers" and with "there | are no scalable useful practical quantum computers". | jazzyjackson wrote: | Quantum Computers sitting in their cryogenic chambers are such | works of art, stacks of giant brass plates and hundreds of heat | pipes (or coolant pipes? liquid helium I suppose) twisted and | coiling throughout the structure hanging like some steampunk | chandelier (why do they hang from above anyway?) EDIT: changed to | a few direct links to pics: [0][1][2] | | The esoteric design reminds me of the Connection Machine blog | posted the other day, "to communicate to people that this was the | first of a new generation of computers, unlike any machine they | had seen before." [3] | | I'm curious what they do with these prototypes once they are | obsoleted in a matter of months, are the parts so expensive they | tear it down to reuse them? Or will the machines be able to go on | tour and stand in glass cases to intrigue the next generation of | engineers? I know it had a tremendous effect on me to stand in | front of a hand-wired lisp machine at the MIT museum. | | [0] https://img-s-msn- | com.akamaized.net/tenant/amp/entityid/AANs... | | [1] https://img-s-msn- | com.akamaized.net/tenant/amp/entityid/AANs... | | [2] | https://static.reuters.com/resources/r/?m=02&d=20191023&t=2&... | | [3] https://tamikothiel.com/theory/cm_txts/ | krastanov wrote: | The pipes you mentioned are microwave conduits (for various | control signals). | jjoonathan wrote: | 0.141" semi-rigid coax, diameter of champions. | rbanffy wrote: | > 0.141" semi-rigid coax, diameter of champions. | | I wonder if we measure it more precisely we'll get to | something closer to 1.4142135623730950488... | jazzyjackson wrote: | Thanks! Is my assumption of liquid helium running somewhere | correct? I figure that's the only way to reach the | temperatures required (single digit kelvins, no?) | zackbloom wrote: | It's much colder than that, single-digit millikelvin. They | use He-3/4 dilution refrigerators [1]. Getting things cold | and electromagnetically-quiet enough that the quantum state | doesn't collapse is a big challenge in the field. | | 1 - https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dilution_refrigerator | krastanov wrote: | It is even worse than single digit Kelvin. | | Liquid Nitrogen with pumping: 40 K for a few thousand | dollars. | | Run of the mill Liquid Helium: 4 K for tens to hundreds of | thousands of dollars. | | But for these devices you need 15mK which is reachable only | if you mix two different isotopes of Helium and pump the | mixture into vacuum. Such a device is up to 1M$ and more. | | And the insides of that device are in vacuum (actually, air | freezing into ice on top of the chip can be a problem). The | brass is basically the heat conductor between the chip and | the cold side of your pumped He mixture (which is *not* | just sloshing inside the whole body of the cryostat where | the chips are). | | Another reason you do not want the He sloshing around is | because you will be opening this to make changes to the | device and do not want all the extremely expensive He3 (the | special isotope you need for the mixture) to be lost. | cashsterling wrote: | FWIW... small DR's are under 400k USD. The big ones are | ~1M USD or more. | robin_reala wrote: | What's a DR? Something refrigerator? | [deleted] | reportingsjr wrote: | Dilution refrigerator. They are the type of refrigerator | used to chill quantum computing devices. The wikipedia | article has a pretty good description of how they work. | It took me a few reads to understand it! | annoyingnoob wrote: | My antivirus client won't let me open that second link, claims | some kind of malicious activity, didn't look into the details. | jazzyjackson wrote: | Strange, it is a personal blog with literally no javascript | (just checked my network tab), might be worth investigating | what your antivirus has against it. It's a very good read, so | just in case your antivirus is friendly with archive.org: htt | ps://web.archive.org/web/20211113093602/https://tamikothi... | rackjack wrote: | I look forward to the day we can look back at these "quantum | chandeliers" with nostalgia, like we look back on those | massive, room-sized mainframes today. | loxias wrote: | I can't wait to be in the vintage quantum computing club, | where we build working replicas of the "quantum chandeliers" | with more modern and stable parts, and tinker with them as | functional room decoration. | | Related, the DEC PDPs certainly look stylish! | [deleted] | alpineidyll3 wrote: | They hang because they sit at the bottom of dilution | refrigerators. | dhosek wrote: | Cray supercomputers were also aesthetically beautiful machines: | | https://cdn.britannica.com/11/23611-050-81E61C8A/Cray-1-supe... | | So happy to be able to find a picture of the wirewrap inside: | https://s-media-cache-ak0.pinimg.com/originals/e2/d2/47/e2d2... | function_seven wrote: | To this day, whenever I hear the term "supercomputer", I can | only visualize the Cray. I don't want to know what the latest | supercomputer looks like, because I suspect it's just another | boring bunch of rack aisles. Maybe with a snazzy color end- | cap or blue LEDs on the doors. | | Bring back the impractical, space-eating circular design! I | don't care about space efficiency. It's supposed to look | cool. | mcpherrinm wrote: | The LEDs are green! | | https://ichef.bbci.co.uk/news/976/cpsprodpb/6F80/production | /... | | https://www.bbc.com/news/world-asia-53147684 | | And they do have a snazzy coloured endcap... | | https://s.yimg.com/uu/api/res/1.2/spVSO7_2vryY6neSXK1JfQ--~ | B... | | https://www.engadget.com/japan-fugaku- | supercomputer-01312169... | noir_lord wrote: | I have a picture of a cray been serviced as an A2 framed | print on my living room wall, it predates the missus which is | why it was on the living room wall ;) | eb0la wrote: | The computer history museum has a CRAY you can see very close | ( https://computerhistory.org/ ). Worth the visit. | nsxwolf wrote: | What's that picture of what looks like an exploded CPU package | on IBMs site? Is that metaphorical or is that really what the | processor looks like? It looks small and not-chandelier like. | ruuda wrote: | They hang from the ceiling because they use evaporative cooling | (the high-energy particles escape, and the low-energy particles | remain in the bucket), each lower stage a bit cooler than the | one above it. | arghwhat wrote: | Also because it looks cool, which is only appropriate for a | cooling system. | Iv wrote: | Unless I am missing something, I believe that these pictures | are at 99% the cryogenic system. | dclowd9901 wrote: | Whoa, that is so cool! I thought the Eischer esque machine in | Devs was mostly Hollywood fluff but it absolutely looked almost | just like that. | wishinghand wrote: | The TV show DEVS has a computer that looks a lot like those | first three links. I always thought their prop was a set | designer's imagination run wild, not actually based in what | quantum computers look like. | jacquesm wrote: | Amazing images, nothing that would look out of place in the | Villa Straylight. | newsbinator wrote: | Someday when quantum computers are the size of dust particles | and we're surrounded by them there'll be some version of a | steampunk subculture that values decorating their homes with | these ancient beautiful and laughably incapable devices. | | Maybe in 30 ~ 50 years or so. | nixpulvis wrote: | I can't help but think of turning them into horrible sounding | organs. | danbolt wrote: | I'm _very_ excited to configure DNS blocking for the quantum | dust particles trying to serve me advertisements in my home. | skhr0680 wrote: | At least analytics won't be able to tell if you looked at | the ad or not | beambot wrote: | I would gladly decorate my home with one. They're beautiful | in their own way. | jes wrote: | For me, the name 'Eagle' reminds me of the book "Soul of a New | Machine" by Tracy Kidder. That book is about the design and | bring-up of another new (at the time) computer system, the Data | General MV/8000, which was also code-named Eagle. | | I wish IBM great success with their work. | | edit: Clarified that the MV/8000 project was also code-named | Eagle. | NegativeLatency wrote: | Haven't read that yet but I read "House" by him recently and it | was quite good | jacquesm wrote: | It's a fantastic book, highly recommended. I have gifted it | tens of times by now, I used to buy them by the box :) | jes wrote: | I enjoyed both Soul of a New Machine and House. | | A scene from the former that I remember. The principle | architect of the machine (Tom West) is talking with Edson | DeCastro (CEO of Data General) and is asking for a new | oscilloscope to help with the bring-up of the machine. | | DeCastro tells West, essentially, he's not authorizing a new, | expensive scope. West, flabbergasted, asks why. DeCastro | lowers his head, peering over the top of his glasses at West, | and says "Because scopes cost money, and engineering overtime | is free." | | I'm telling this from memory and some of the details are | wrong. I guess I should go get a Kindle copy of the book and | re-read it. :-) | tasty_freeze wrote: | I read the book when it was new. Just a handful of years | later I graduated college and got a job at a start up. One | of the guys who interviewed me and ended up in the office | directly across from my cubicle was Carl Alsing. | | A few months later someone mentioned that Carl was in "Soul | of a New Machine" (Carl was the seasoned hand who was in | charge of the "microkids", the green engineers responsible | for writing the microcode). | | I re-read the book. When Kidder first introduces Alsing he | sums him up in a few sentences, and damn if he wasn't spot | on. Later in the book is an entire chapter about Carl and | his unorthodox work habits, and again, it all was so on the | mark with what I had learned of Carl firsthand that it gave | the rest of the book a great deal of credibility. | ghaff wrote: | House is his other book that clicked with me given I had | bought a fixer-upper at the time I read it. I really liked | both books but none of the topics of his other books really | clicked with me. | fennecfoxen wrote: | Anyone who wants to evoke the pioneering spirit of the moon | landing(tm) uses the name. I worked on a project codenamed | "Eagle" just earlier this year. | osipov wrote: | surprisingly not a word about quantum supremacy | xondono wrote: | Because we all know "Quantum Supremacy" is just another | marketing term, like "Militar grade encryption". | Koshkin wrote: | > _It heralds the point in hardware development where quantum | circuits cannot be reliably simulated exactly on a classical | computer._ | cgearhart wrote: | I mean, that was practically already the case with the Google | Sycamore processor. IBM claimed that they could simulate the | 53-qubit circuit in something like 24 hours on a | supercomputer (with a bunch of bespoke optimizations), but a | 54-qubit version would have been completely classically | intractable. We didn't need to get to 100+ qubits, and those | came out before now. | intvocoder wrote: | Google's claim was widely criticized for being an | unimportant and uninteresting benchmark, making the quantum | s*premacy claim nonsense. | | Later research proposes that an exascale-level | supercomputer could simulate it in "dozens of seconds". | | https://arxiv.org/abs/2111.03011 | krastanov wrote: | This is a funny comparison. | | "Here is this device with 50 components. It can be | simulated by a device with 1000000000000 components, so | we should not really be impressed." | bnjemian wrote: | Truth. Not to mention the stunning asymmetry in energy | usage. At a minimum, if we can solve an equivalent | computational problem using a quantum computer with | orders of magnitude less energy than a classical HPC, QC | merits consideration. The carbon footprint of data | centers is far from negligible. | | Computational advantages aren't the only types advantages | we should care about. | dumbfounder wrote: | When it costs a few dollars to make the latter and tens | of millions to make the former then it's fair to not be | super impressed. | krastanov wrote: | You are off by 9 orders of magnitude at least. The | classical super computer in these comparisons costs 0.3 | Billion dollars and this does not count the many | Trillions that took to develop the tech. | | Even on this measure, the (useless for now) quantum tech | wins. | bawolff wrote: | That's such a stupid criticism. Quantum supremacy is an | arbitrary benchmark by definition. | ncmncm wrote: | Maybe because China has that now? | KoftaBob wrote: | Is there evidence to your claim, or are you just partaking in | the incredibly banal "China is going to overtake us in ____" | doomsday porn? | gre wrote: | Quantum supremacy just means that a quantum computer is | better than a classical computer at solving some (toy) task, | not that one country's quantum computer is better than | another country's. | quijoteuniv wrote: | Can't wait to install Windows on this! | da_chicken wrote: | I prefer the old standby responses: | | > Just imagine a Beowulf cluster of _these_ | | Or: | | > But can it run Crysis? | mindcrime wrote: | This is IBM, it will only run OS/2. | dvh wrote: | Will this system be finally able to factor number 35 using Shor? | IBM tried and failed in 2019 | rain1 wrote: | It is incredibly dishonest of them to post this without any | details about the noise parameters of the system. | | When reading "127-qubit system" you would expect that you can | perform arbitrary quantum computations on these 127 qubits and | they would reasonably cohere for at least a few quantum gates. | | In reality the noise levels are so strong that you can | essentially do nothing with them except get random noise results. | Maybe averaging the same computation 10 million times will _just_ | give you enough proof that they were actually coherent and did a | quantum computation. | | The omission of proper technical details is essentially the same | as lying. | scrubs wrote: | I hope US esp. but also our EU scientist friends eat everybody | else's lunch. Better tech. Better science. Better math. Better | algos. And, yes, let's get those details right too. Noise | management is a key discriminator between POC and practical. | andrewla wrote: | Basically little more than having a bathtub and claiming you've | built a computer that does 600e23 node fluid dynamic | calculations. But a lot more expensive. | littlestymaar wrote: | I haven't read anything on this one yet, but your analogy | fits Google's "quantum supremacy" paper really well, I likes | it. | bnjemian wrote: | Ugh, the point is a fine one but it appears it has to be | made: | | Validation of experimental theory through the | characterization and control of an entire system is not the | same as building the same system and simply seeing the | final state is what you expect. The latter is much easier | and says very little about your understanding. | | Here's an analogy: Two people can get drunk, shack up for | the night, and 9 months later have created one of the most | powerful known computers: A brain. Oops. On the flip, it's | unlikely we'll have a full characterization and | understanding of the human brain in our lifetimes - but if | we ever do, the things we'll be able to do with that | understanding will very likely be profound. | andrewla wrote: | My reply was glib but I think in principle correct. The | idea of a strictly controlled system in the NISQ domain | to validate quantum supremacy in theory is an interesting | approach, but it feel deceptive to me because this | 127-qubit computer cannot in fact factor 127-bit numbers | with Shor's algorithm or anything like that. | | The accomplishment is more akin to creating a bathtub | with 127 atoms and doing fluid dynamic simulations on | that, which is a much harder problem in many ways than | doing the 6e25 version of the experiment. But it is very | questionable to me whether any claims of quantum | supremacy retain validity when leaving the NISQ domain | and trying to do useful computations. | | Gil Kalai's work in the area [1] continues to be very | influential to me, especially what I consider the most | interesting observations, namely that classical computers | only barely work -- we rely on the use of long settlement | times to avoid Buridan's Principle [2], and without that | even conventional computers are too noisy to do actual | computation. | | [1] https://gilkalai.wordpress.com/2021/11/04/face-to- | face-talks... is a recent one | | [2] https://lamport.azurewebsites.net/pubs/buridan.pdf | amelius wrote: | I guess they should show that they have achieved quantum | advantage: | | The Chinese did show it some time ago: | | https://www.globaltimes.cn/page/202110/1237312.shtml | inasio wrote: | It's particularly jarring given that IBM came up with the | concept of quantum volume [0]... | | [0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Quantum_volume | kvathupo wrote: | With the caveat that the paper is from a competitor that I | like, this benchmark paper [1] makes me inclined to disregard | this result. See figure 1. | | __EDIT:__ whoops wrong figure, just read section iv or see the | first figure here [2] | | [1] - https://arxiv.org/abs/2110.03137 | | [2] - https://ionq.com/posts/october-18-2021-benchmarking-our- | next... | samaman wrote: | Also another problem: you now have 2^127 output values leaving | the quantum processor. If you're using a hybrid quantum | algorithm that requires classical processing as well (which are | most algos used today), you'd need more than a yottabyte of | RAM. We can get around this problem by storing all 2^127 pieces | of output data into other data types that compress the total | size, but if you genuinely are trying to use all 2^127 outputs, | you'd still need to do some pretty intensive searching to even | find meaningful outputs. I guess this is where Grovers search | could come really handy, right? | piannucci wrote: | You don't get the entire wave-function as output; the wave- | function is not observable. Different measurements might | reveal information about certain components of the state, at | least probabilistically, but those same measurements will | always destroy some information. See the No-cloning Theorem. | samaman wrote: | Right, but you would still get the basis states for all 127 | qubits right? And that would be 2^127 output states. Yes, | you could do some sort of search maybe to find highest | probability outputs only, but if you needed every output | value for a follow up algorithmic step (like in VQE for | ground state prep wherein you keep using previous results | to adjust the wavefunctions until ground is reached), then | wouldn't it be a bit tough to use? | krastanov wrote: | You have 127 qubits that you measure and you end up with | a classical string of length 127. Sure, that classical | string, the measurement result, could have ended being | any of 2^127 possible different values into which the | wavefunction collapses. But that is no different from | saying that there are 1^1024 possible states that a 1kB | of classical RAM can be in. It is not related to the | (conjectured) computational advantage that quantum | computers have. | samaman wrote: | Right okay makes sense...guess I am just too used to NISQ | and having to run many thousands of shots for high enough | fidelity..if all you wanted was one output, then yeah one | classical string is easy enough, thanks | [deleted] | vbtemp wrote: | It seems like IBM has blown their credibility so many times. As | soon as I saw IBM mentioned in the lead of the title, I knew | what was to follow is almost entirely actual-content-free | marketing spin. | mathattack wrote: | Welcome to IBM. Is Quantum the new Watson? | krylon wrote: | > The omission of proper technical details is essentially the | same as lying. | | Welcome, child, to the beautiful/"special" world of marketing! | nixpulvis wrote: | Be gone fetus, for there has always been honest marketing. | It's just harder to find, sadly. | lazide wrote: | If it's below the noise floor, how do we separate it from | 'accidental (or incompetent?) honest marketing'? | akomtu wrote: | Marketing is the art of lying, basically. Distract attention | from significant flaws, advertise insignificant advantages, | let customers build a wrong mental model. | VWWHFSfQ wrote: | This is fascinating to me! Quantum computing is such an | incredible frontier. But I suppose it will mostly be used to | decrypt all the currently un-decryptable internet traffic being | archived at the Utah Data Center [1]. But, maybe it will also be | used for something good for humanity, too. | | [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Utah_Data_Center | krastanov wrote: | The cryptography uses are fairly boring in my opinion. We | already have classical cryptography techniques which are not | susceptible to quantum computers. | | On the other hand, being finally able to fully simulate large | molecules with significant quantum effects (not possible even | on classical super computers) would be amazing. | zikduruqe wrote: | I like this talk... and especially around the 10 minute mark. | | https://www.ted.com/talks/craig_costello_in_the_war_for_info... | czbond wrote: | I like how their emails are on the article like "hey, I'm a quant | C.S. that works at IBM. Hire me somewhere great!" | haltingproblem wrote: | Obligatory PSA: Scott Locklin's "Quantum computing as a field is | obvious bullshit": | | "When I say Quantum Computing is a bullshit field, I don't mean | everything in the field is bullshit, though to first order, this | appears to be approximately true. I don't have a mathematical | proof that Quantum Computing isn't at least theoretically | possible. I also do not have a mathematical proof that we can or | can't make the artificial bacteria of K. Eric Drexler's nanotech | fantasies. Yet, I know both fields are bullshit. Both fields | involve forming new kinds of matter that we haven't the slightest | idea how to construct. Neither field has a sane 'first step' to | make their large claims true. | | ..... | | "quantum computing" enthusiasts expect you to overlook the fact | that they haven't a clue as to how to build and manipulate | quantum coherent forms of matter necessary to achieve quantum | computation. A quantum computer capable of truly factoring the | number 21 is missing in action. In fact, the factoring of the | number 15 into 3 and 5 is a bit of a parlour trick, as they | design the experiment while knowing the answer, thus leaving out | the gates required if we didn't know how to factor 15. The actual | number of gates needed to factor a n-bit number is 72 x n^3; so | for 15, it's 4 bits, 4608 gates; not happening any time soon". | | [1]: https://scottlocklin.wordpress.com/2019/01/15/quantum- | comput... ___________________________________________________________________ (page generated 2021-11-16 23:00 UTC)