5 ms·

Anyone catch the price? Or is this one of those "contact sales" products...

reikonomusha 6y ago
You can’t just buy the machine like any other COTS product. You typically need a team of PhD scientists to operate it as well. I think D-Wave has also gone the way of providing it as a cloud product with their ‘Leap’ service.
- discordance 6y ago
  otherwise known as PhDaaS
- api 6y ago
  You needed a bunch of Ph.Ds to operate early digital computers too. You didn’t just unbox one of those and start doing stuff. This is probably the 1930s of quantum computing.
  - boothby 6y ago
    If I know my history,* the first programmable classical computer was made in 1941; we had the D-Wave One programmable quantum computer in 2011. So... the 50s? * I don't, so I read a Wikipedia article or two
- inasio 6y ago
  Also available, I think, on Amazon Bracket (and perhaps on Azure Quantum as well)
- boothby 6y ago
  Last I heard (I work there, but not in hardware) it takes a couple of technicians a few weeks to install the machine onsite, but after that, they're extremely low maintenance. The skill required to use them "locally" is quite the same as using them on the cloud, and we regularly have undergrad co-ops get up to speed using them. No PhDs required. That said, we're much more focused on cloud sales; under that model, big customers get dedicated resources and everybody gets access to machines just about as fast as we make them.
  - reikonomusha 6y ago
    I’ll admit, it’s quite a feat if the machine can be self-regulated without scientist hand-holding. Is that true? Does that machine self-correct from calibration drift?
    - boothby 6y ago
      I'm not familiar enough with our calibration code to speak to that directly, but we can do calibrations remotely without sending techs out. I'm told that the impressive thing is that our dilution fridges can run for several years uninterrupted.
core-questions 6y ago
It's something like $2k for an hour of processor time, which is a lot of submitted jobs. You can sign up for free, and I think they have credit card transactions, so no, it's a bit more direct than all that.
dheera 6y ago
> "contact sales" products We need a Wiki-ish Chrome plugin that pastes in actual prices on all websites that have "contact sales" pricing. If you are the first to contact sales, you can fill it in for future customers to see without needing to contact sales. This would also help expose price discrimination, in which companies give favorable pricing to people of a certain race or nationality or industry or location. I hate it when I contact sales and they ask "may we know more about your application?" and my next thought is always "how about you tell me your price first, and then I'll be happy to share". "may we know your name" -> "why, so you can decide your offer price based on if I'm white or asian or something?". "may we know your location" -> "why, so you can decide your price based on the average income in my area?"
- deleted 6y ago
  [deleted]
- sulam 6y ago
  Yes, in your first example this is known as “value-based pricing.” However, when it comes to quantum computing, they may be trying to determine if your application is even relevant to their solution.
- memetomancer 6y ago
  This sounds just like someone calling up McClaren or Ferrari and demanding an MSRP on one of their Formula-1 cars... and screaming RACISM if they don't have an immediate answer. Systems like this are not just sitting on a shelf with a price tag... there are tons of other considerations going on here: integration, deployment and support contracts... required infrastructure like power, network switches - even cabling can go into the tens of thousands of dollars. No chrome plugin is going to fix this "contact sales" problem, and assuming some nefarious racist intent only goes to show that the inquiry is a waste of time for the person on the other end of the line.
  - dheera 6y ago
    > and screaming RACISM if they don't have an immediate answer Oh I can tell you plenty of stories of suppliers giving you lower prices depending on what human language you speak with them. It happens, and people should know that it happens. > even cabling can go into the tens of thousands of dollars For those types of products, great, I'd like to know that cabling will be ~$10K-$50K, fixed costs will be $10K, and support contracts will be ~$1-5K/month. I just want an order of magnitude. Is this $100, $1000, or $100,000 that I'm looking at? I want an order of magnitude before a phone call. If such a plugin existed, at least I could see the distributions in pricing among past customers.

You can’t just buy the machine like any other COTS product. You typically need a team of PhD scientists to operate it as well. I think D-Wave has also gone the way of providing it as a cloud product with their ‘Leap’ service.

discordance 6y ago
otherwise known as PhDaaS
api 6y ago
You needed a bunch of Ph.Ds to operate early digital computers too. You didn’t just unbox one of those and start doing stuff. This is probably the 1930s of quantum computing.
- boothby 6y ago
  If I know my history,* the first programmable classical computer was made in 1941; we had the D-Wave One programmable quantum computer in 2011. So... the 50s? * I don't, so I read a Wikipedia article or two
inasio 6y ago
Also available, I think, on Amazon Bracket (and perhaps on Azure Quantum as well)
boothby 6y ago
Last I heard (I work there, but not in hardware) it takes a couple of technicians a few weeks to install the machine onsite, but after that, they're extremely low maintenance. The skill required to use them "locally" is quite the same as using them on the cloud, and we regularly have undergrad co-ops get up to speed using them. No PhDs required. That said, we're much more focused on cloud sales; under that model, big customers get dedicated resources and everybody gets access to machines just about as fast as we make them.
- reikonomusha 6y ago
  I’ll admit, it’s quite a feat if the machine can be self-regulated without scientist hand-holding. Is that true? Does that machine self-correct from calibration drift?
  - boothby 6y ago
    I'm not familiar enough with our calibration code to speak to that directly, but we can do calibrations remotely without sending techs out. I'm told that the impressive thing is that our dilution fridges can run for several years uninterrupted.

core-questions 6y ago

It's something like $2k for an hour of processor time, which is a lot of submitted jobs. You can sign up for free, and I think they have credit card transactions, so no, it's a bit more direct than all that.

dheera 6y ago

> "contact sales" products We need a Wiki-ish Chrome plugin that pastes in actual prices on all websites that have "contact sales" pricing. If you are the first to contact sales, you can fill it in for future customers to see without needing to contact sales. This would also help expose price discrimination, in which companies give favorable pricing to people of a certain race or nationality or industry or location. I hate it when I contact sales and they ask "may we know more about your application?" and my next thought is always "how about you tell me your price first, and then I'll be happy to share". "may we know your name" -> "why, so you can decide your offer price based on if I'm white or asian or something?". "may we know your location" -> "why, so you can decide your price based on the average income in my area?"

deleted 6y ago
[deleted]
sulam 6y ago
Yes, in your first example this is known as “value-based pricing.” However, when it comes to quantum computing, they may be trying to determine if your application is even relevant to their solution.
memetomancer 6y ago
This sounds just like someone calling up McClaren or Ferrari and demanding an MSRP on one of their Formula-1 cars... and screaming RACISM if they don't have an immediate answer. Systems like this are not just sitting on a shelf with a price tag... there are tons of other considerations going on here: integration, deployment and support contracts... required infrastructure like power, network switches - even cabling can go into the tens of thousands of dollars. No chrome plugin is going to fix this "contact sales" problem, and assuming some nefarious racist intent only goes to show that the inquiry is a waste of time for the person on the other end of the line.
- dheera 6y ago
  > and screaming RACISM if they don't have an immediate answer Oh I can tell you plenty of stories of suppliers giving you lower prices depending on what human language you speak with them. It happens, and people should know that it happens. > even cabling can go into the tens of thousands of dollars For those types of products, great, I'd like to know that cabling will be ~$10K-$50K, fixed costs will be $10K, and support contracts will be ~$1-5K/month. I just want an order of magnitude. Is this $100, $1000, or $100,000 that I'm looking at? I want an order of magnitude before a phone call. If such a plugin existed, at least I could see the distributions in pricing among past customers.