Google’s First Quantum Computer

Canon EOS 5D Mark II

ƒ/4

16 mm

1/125

5000

The D-Wave team toured the installation at NASA today. The red badges are for the visitors from Canada.

(More photos below… and walk-in video of our first sight of the new machine.)

“We actually think quantum machine learning may provide the most creative problem-solving process under the known laws of physics.” — Google Blog

“the system will be the most powerful in the world, with approximately 512 superconducting flux qubits”
— NASA’s Quantum AI Lab

“Quantum computing is based on quantum bits or qubits. Unlike traditional computers, in which bits must have a value of either zero or one, a qubit can represent a zero, a one, or both values simultaneously. Representing information in qubits allows the information to be processed in ways that have no equivalent in classical computing, taking advantage of phenomena such as quantum tunneling and quantum entanglement. As such, quantum computers may theoretically be able to solve certain problems in a few days that would take millions of years on a classical computer.” — NASA QuAIL

14 responses to “Google’s First Quantum Computer”

jurvetson

Aug 21, 2013 at 4:36 am

The entrance to the facility which draws 4MW (for the other classical supercomputers):

Side view

Zooming in to the top left corner, we see 13mK… or .01 degrees above absolute zero

I also saw the deposition tool that D-Wave uses to deposit superconducting niobium rings with atomic precision:

Reply
Ramones Karaoke

Aug 21, 2013 at 8:38 am

It’s getting realer by the minute.

Reply
scleroplex

Aug 21, 2013 at 8:10 pm

wow!

Reply
RRNeal

Aug 22, 2013 at 2:09 am

incredible!!!!!

Reply
sbove

Aug 22, 2013 at 6:34 am

Great job on the exterior. Fascinating: "you get the best results not with pure quantum computing, but by mixing quantum and classical computing."

Reply
Doogsonai

Aug 22, 2013 at 2:05 pm

"87.4 fW" is not a measure you see normally! The 4MW note begs the question: how much power does the D:Wave installation draw, including cooling? How does it compare to a high-end multi-core workstation these days?

Very happy to see this system in more research labs. The challenge is as much about inventing the new algorithms to make use of the qbits as it is in creating the hardware!

Reply
jurvetson

Aug 29, 2013 at 12:08 am

The processor uses almost no energy. The fixed cooling overhead will not grow as the processor power scales over time. For this D-Wave Two, NASA says that it "uses 12 kilowatts of power (compared to an average of 4100 kilowatts for the 10 top U.S. supercomputers)" and classical computers don’t scale so well on power, so that 400x advantage should grow considerably over time.

P.S. Rolf caught me in the act…

and Haig documented the board dinner the prior night

Reply
Kaets Ebut

Sep 5, 2013 at 6:00 am

That thing is enormous! Is it full of vacuum tubes?

Reply
Kaets Ebut

Sep 5, 2013 at 6:02 am

> The red badges are for the visitors from Canada.

That’s best for safety–they look just like us. And I suppose it beats a scarlet "C".

Reply
jurvetson

Oct 1, 2013 at 5:41 pm

[http://www.flickr.com/photos/17041419@N07] — Is it full of tubes?…. no…. OMG…. it’s full of stars

I must be in a superposition of spin… from today’s Vancouver Business:

“At DFJ, we like investing in passionate entrepreneurs with unique ideas that could change the world,” Jurvetson told BIV. “Ten years on, D-Wave is still utterly unique and the potential just as revolutionary.”

Reply
jurvetson

Oct 13, 2013 at 4:33 pm

A Superposition of Open + Shut-Down Government >
Google and NASA release a super-cooled short film on quantum mechanics and their new quantum computer.

It is set to debut at the Imagine Science Films Festival in New York.

A related article “Google Uses Quantum Computers to Optimize Android, Plots World Domination” describes the early applications in search and wink detection for Glass and concludes:

“Google says it spent $10M USD in total on the exotic setup — but that money appears well worth it, as Google says that the quantum computer has generated algorithms faster than entire datacenters it had previously put to the task. In the future Google wants to use its quantum computers not only to optimize its algorithms, but as a complement to its traditional processing backend, to accelerate some special kinds of searches.

Oh, and one last thing to mention — Google says it has further evidence that D-Wave’s computers are operating on true quantum entanglement, not some lesser equivalent as some doubters speculated — so take that, haters.” =)

Reply
scleroplex

Oct 13, 2013 at 5:46 pm

super!!!

Reply
domecreek

Dec 10, 2015 at 12:18 am

remarkable – what a wonderful achievement !!!

Reply
a.marelj

Feb 15, 2018 at 1:45 pm

bitcoin,AI,..EXTERMINATE EXTERMINATE EXTERMINATE 🙂

Reply

Google’s First Quantum Computer

14 responses to “Google’s First Quantum Computer”

Leave a Reply to Kaets Ebut Cancel reply