Not according to D-wave systems in Burnaby British Columbia, Canada.
They have a free webcast scheduled for February 13 of a demonstration of their quantum cpu.
D-Wave Systems, a hardware developer headed by 34-year-old theoretical physicist Geordie Rose, has issued an open invitation to all technophiles to become "an eye witness to history" at the live-link, Feb. 13 launch of the company's "16-qubit" Orion supercomputer. And the demonstration of D-Wave's "technological first" will take place at a site equal to the company's portentous claims -- the Computer History Museum in the heart of Silicon Valley
I can not help but wonder that once these things start to become commercially available just how fast they will improve in both processing power and speed.
Hopefully this will be the first of many new developments in the Computer Industry that is moving far faster than the current Major Software Developers are capable of moving at and will put them back to the fringe community where they belong.
systems with these will be an inducement to mainframe based computing though.
"16 cpus fit on the head of a pin, but requires a refrigerator sized cooling unit with liquid helium for cooling" definately not a home system. nor a viable desktop system. the heat control needs to be seriously addressed to bring these chips out of a big iron system.
Since Quantum Mechanics, and now Computing go back around 100 years now, and so many people have been contributing to that field rather openly, it would be hard to make it propritory. (Although, I think Enistein did have his ideas patented... ? Just as long as it get anywhere near Redmond...)
In order to achieve any computing at all, (*1) variables in a state have to be introduced. Hense; the Dead or alive little kittie. For example: 1 Automoble, It is in Motion, You want to determine, compute, it's speed. (at a particular point and time) A speed measuring device, such as a Radar Speed Gun could be used. As with the Cat, the observation would 'catch' the car in a 'State' that neither at rest or in motion. That done twice, could then determine speed. (*2 & 3) Catching the light, somewhere along the intended path, or at various points in the path would then observed as a means of computing. :^0 -d (*1 in the absence of unknown, or presence of only known factors, computing would un-necessary.) (*2 you know the time, distance, calulation, to determine the speed) (*3 the actuall state of the Auto is irrealevent, it of course would be in motion, however, it will be observed at rest, at least twice. Schr?dinger's Car)
poor kitty. The Cat was in a 'live' state when you put him in the box. The Cat WILL be dead when you open the box. No Computing involved. (2 givens) The real problem is the transition calculation. (What is going on when the Cat is in transition) a Flux Box. True Quantum Mechanics.
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Quantum Computing, is it a Pipe Dream?
They have a free webcast scheduled for February 13 of a demonstration of their quantum cpu.
The news article:
http://www.canada.com/vancouversun/news/story.html?id=b32107b1-b4c2-4312-b92f-75aa048f7655&k=73484
editing to bump the thread yet again.