13 ms·

Willow, Our Quantum Chip

• nuz 2y ago
  Every time this comes up people say they're not actually useful for ML. Is that true? And if not what would they be useful for
  • christkv 2y ago
    In principal NP complete problems is my guess.
    • wazdra 2y ago
      It is unknown whether quantum computing makes NP-complete problems easier to solve. There is a complexity class for problems that can be solved "efficiently" on using quantum computing, called BQP. How BQP and NP are related is unknown. In particular, if an NP-complete problem was shown to be solvable efficiently with Quantum Computing (and thus in BQP), this open (and hard) research question would be solved (or at least half of it). Note that BQP is not "efficient" in a real-word fashion, but for theoretical study of Quantum computing, it's a good first guess
    • benbayard 2y ago
      AFAIK, which is not much, I believe it is problems that you can turn in to a cycle. Right now we pull out answers from quantum computers at random, but typically do not know what the inputs were that got that answer. But if you can get the answers from the quantum computer to be cyclical you can use that symmetry to get all the information you need.
  • whimsicalism 2y ago
    breaking crypto, for one
  • LampCharger 2y ago
    No, a true quantum computer will not necessarily solve NP-complete (NPC) problems efficiently. Quantum algorithms like Grover’s provide quadratic speedups, but this is insufficient to turn exponential-time solutions into polynomial-time ones. While quantum computers excel in specific tasks (e.g., Shor’s algorithm for factoring), there’s no evidence they can solve all NP-complete problems efficiently. Current complexity theory suggests that , the class of problems solvable by quantum computers, does not encompass . Quantum computers may aid in approximations or heuristics for NPC problems but won’t fundamentally resolve them in polynomial time unless , which remains unlikely.
  • vessenes 2y ago
    Factoring. Reversing ECC operations. Decrypting all the data thought to be safely stored at rest in any non quantum resistant storage. I do think ai algorithms could be built that quantum gates could be fast at, but I don’t have any ideas off the top of my head this morning. If you think of AI training as searching the space of computational complexity and quantum algorithms as accessing a superposition of search states I would guess there’s an intersection. Google thinks so too - the lab is called quantum ai.
• tombert 2y ago
  Interesting; it might be time for me to load up a quantum simulator and star learning how to program these things. I've pushed that off for a long time since I wasn't completely convinced that quantum computers actually worked, but I think I was wrong.
  • nick__m 2y ago
    IBM has well structured learning material and a quantum simulator at https://learning.quantum.ibm.com/ https://learning.quantum.ibm.com/ Also my almamater made the quantum enigmas series that is appropriate for high-school students (it also interesting if you have no prior knowledge about quantum computing) https://www.usherbrooke.ca/iq/quantumenigmas/ https://www.usherbrooke.ca/iq/quantumenigmas/ (it also use IBM online learning platform)
• gordon_freeman 2y ago
  So one of the interesting comparisons between Quantum computing vs classical in the video: 5 mins vs 10^25 years. So are there any tradeoffs or specific cases in which the use cases for Quantum computing works or is this generic for "all" computing use cases? if later then this will change everything and would change the world.
  • dabeeeenster 2y ago
    Its for a very, very, very narrow set of algorithms AFAIUI.
  • antognini 2y ago
    There are only certain kinds of computing tasks which are amenable to an exponential speedup from quantum computing. For many classical algorithms the best you get from a quantum computer is an improvement by a factor of sqrt(N) by using Grover's algorithm. The other tradeoff is that quantum computers are much noisier than classical computers. The error rate of classical computers is exceedingly low, to the extent that most programmers can go their entire career without even considering it as a possibility. But you can see from the figures in this post that even in a state of the art chip, the error rates are of order ~0.03--0.3%. Hopefully this will go down over time, but it's going to be a non-negligible aspect of quantum computing for the foreseeable future.
  • pitpatagain 2y ago
    It is specific to cases where a quantum algorithm exists that provides speedup, it is not at all generic. The complexity class of interest is BQP: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/BQP https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/BQP Also of note: P is in BQP, but it is not proven that BQP != P. Some problems like factoring have a known polynomial time algorithm, and the best known classical algorithm is exponential, which is where you see these massive speedups. But we don't know that there isn't an unknown polynomial time classical factoring algorithm and we just haven't discovered it yet. It is a (widely believed) conjecture, that there are hard problems solved in BQP that are outside P.
  • deleted 2y ago
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• LampCharger 2y ago
  [flagged]
  • sidcool 2y ago
    Nice. I like how HN now has AI summary bots.
    • LampCharger 2y ago
      [flagged]
      • aspenmayer 2y ago
        Generated comments are against HN guidelines.
        • yorwba 2y ago
          Not seeing anything about generated comments in there: https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html
          • aspenmayer 2y ago
            https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=42224783 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=42224783 https://hn.algolia.com/?dateRange=all&page=0&prefix=true&query=human%20generated%20by%3Adang&sort=byDate&type=comment https://hn.algolia.com/?dateRange=all&page=0&prefix=true&que...
• jawns 2y ago
  > It lends credence to the notion that quantum computation occurs in many parallel universes, in line with the idea that we live in a multiverse I see the evidence, and I see the conclusion, but there's a lot of ellipses between the evidence and the conclusion. Do quantum computing folks really think that we are borrowing capacity from other universes for these calculations?
  • gaze 2y ago
    I'm upset they put this in because this is absolutely not the view of most quantum foundations researchers.
    • whimsicalism 2y ago
      the everettian view is absolutely not the view? i am not so sure. or you mean specifically the parallel computation view?
      • gaze 2y ago
        sorry -- the results don't add weight to one view or the other. The interpretations are equivalent.
        • whimsicalism 2y ago
          not metaphysically equivalent. also, i’m not so certain it will always be untestable. i would have thought the same thing about hidden variables but i underestimated the cleverness of experimentalists
          • DennisP 2y ago
            I think "experimentally equivalent" is what GP meant, and as of today, it holds true. Google's results are predicted by other interpretations just as well as by Everett. Maybe someday there will be a clever experiment to distinguish the models but just "we have a good QC" is not that.
• htrp 2y ago
  105 qubits
• wslh 2y ago
  ELI5: what I could do if I have this chip at home?
  • wrsh07 2y ago
    Probably just research on quantum computers? I don't think it's big enough to let you solve any practical problems, but maybe someone can correct me
    • d3m0t3p 2y ago
      IF (and that's a big if) that's true then it means they can factorize number into primes with this quantum computer and break encryption.
      • Ar-Curunir 2y ago
        No, this quantum computer cannot factorize the large composite numbers that we use for modern RSA. Even for the numbers that it can factor, I don't think it will be faster than a decent classical computer.
      • wasabi991011 2y ago
        No, that's not what that means. Not sure what you mean by the "that" when you say "if that's true", but there is nothing in this thread or by google that is anywhere close to breaking encryption.
        • bluSCALE4 2y ago
          How are you so sure? If something that takes years is completed in minutes, how is encryption safe?
          • shawabawa3 2y ago
            The amount of cubits required for a practical application of shors algorithm to break modern encryption is known and it's around 2500 qubits Willow has 100
• readyplayernull 2y ago
  > It lends credence to the notion that quantum computation occurs in many parallel universes, in line with the idea that we live in a multiverse, a prediction first made by David Deutsch. Processing in multiverse. Would that mean we are inyecting entropy into those other verses? Could we calculate how many are there from the time it takes to do a given calculation? We need to cool the quantum chip in our universe, how are the (n-1)verses cooling on their end?
  • deanCommie 2y ago
    What if we are? And by injecting entropy into it, we are actually hurrying (in small insignificant ways) the heat death of those universes? What if we keep going and scale out and in the future it causes a meaningful impact to that universe in a way that it's residents would be extremely unhappy with, and would want to take revenge? What if it's already happening to our universe? And that is what black holes are? Or other cosmology concepts we don't understand? Maybe a great filter is your inability to protect your universe from quantum technology from elsewhere in the multiverse ripping yours up? Maybe the future of sentience isn't fighting for resources on a finite planet, or consuming the energy of stars, but fighting against other multiverses. Maybe The Dark Forest Defence is a decision to isolate your universe from the multiverse - destroying it's ability to participate in quantum computation, but also extending it's lifespan. (I don't believe ANY of this, but I'm just noting the fascinating science fiction storylines available)
    • navaati 2y ago
      Getting strong vibes of Asimov’s novel "The Gods Themselves" here ! For those who haven’t read it I recommend it. It’s a nice little self-contained book, not a grandiose series and universe, but I love it.
      • demaga 2y ago
        This is exactly it, love that book.
    • kridsdale1 2y ago
• ipsum2 2y ago
  They renamed quantum supremacy to "beyond-classical"? That's something.
  • maxboone 2y ago
    https://arxiv.org/abs/1705.06768 https://arxiv.org/abs/1705.06768 It's not something that new, I like it.
  • sdenton4 2y ago
    Quantum supremacy was an absolutely awful name for what it was (ability to do something, anything, better than a classical computer, which remains 'supreme' on all problems of any practical interest).
    • airstrike 2y ago
      Sure, but it sounded much cooler
• deleted 2y ago
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• Mistletoe 2y ago
  In what ways could Google monetize quantum computing?
  • michaelt 2y ago
    Searching through an unstructured data set of size N on a classical computer takes O(N) time but on a quantum computer, Grover's Algorithm allows such a search to be performed in O(N^0.5) time. So Quantum Computing, could bring us a future where, when you perform a Google search for a word, the web pages returned actually contain the word you searched for.
    • _benj 2y ago
      > So Quantum Computing, could bring us a future where, when you perform a Google search for a word, the web pages returned actually contain the word you searched for. Lol! I'm not gonna put a kagi plug here...
  • deleted 2y ago
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• 7e 2y ago
  Quantum mechanics is a computational shortcut that makes our simulation cost-effective. Mass adoption of chips like these is going to make the particular situation we live in unprofitable for hosts, resulting in the firey and dramatic end of the world for us. Simulating ancestors is fun, but not after your cloud bill skyrockets. Thank you, Google, for bringing about the apocalypse.
• vessenes 2y ago
  I’m a quantum dabbler so I’ll throw out an armchair reaction: this is a significant announcement. My memory is that 256 bit keys in non quantum resistant algos need something like 2500 qubits or so; and by that I mean generally useful programmable qubits. To show a bit over 100 qubits with stability, meaning the information survives a while, long enough to be read, and general enough to run some benchmarks on is something many people thought might never come. There’s a sort of religious reaction people have to quantum computing: it breaks so many things that I think a lot of people just like to assume it won’t happen: too much in computing and data security will change -> let’s not worry about it. Combined with the slow pace of physical research progress (Schorrs algorithm for quantum factoring was mid 90s), and snake oil sales companies, it’s easy to ignore. Anyway seems like the clock might be ticking; AI and data security will be unalterably different if so. Worth spending a little time doing some long tail strategizing I’d say.
  • goatking 2y ago
    How can I, a regular software engineer, learn about quantum computing without having to learn quantum theory? > Worth spending a little time doing some long tail strategizing I’d say any tips for starters?
    • sshb 2y ago
      Might be worth checking out: https://quantum.country/ https://quantum.country/
    • zitterbewegung 2y ago
      I recommend this book I studied it in Undergrad and I never took a quantum theory course. https://www.amazon.com/Quantum-Computing-Computer-Scientists-Yanofsky/dp/0521879965/ https://www.amazon.com/Quantum-Computing-Computer-Scientists...
      • raidicy 2y ago
        Are there any insights that you can give based off the info you've learned about quantum computation that you might not have been able to reach if you hadn't learned about it? From my __very__ shallow understanding, because all of the efficiency increases are in very specific areas, it might not be useful for the average computer science interested individual?
• vhiremath4 2y ago
  I really wish the release videos made things a ~tad~ bit less technical. I know quantum computers are still very early so the target audience is technical for this kind of release, but I can’t help wonder how many more people would be excited and pulled in if they made the main release video more approachable.
  • tcgv 2y ago
    If you have programming experience, you might find this interesting: back in 2019, when Google announced achieving quantum supremacy, I worked on a personal project to study the basics of quantum computing and share my learnings with others in my blog: - https://thomasvilhena.com/2019/11/quantum-computing-for-programmers https://thomasvilhena.com/2019/11/quantum-computing-for-prog...
    • vhiremath4 2y ago
      Excellent thank you!
• rdtsc 2y ago
  The main part for me is reducing error faster as they scale. This was a major road-block, known as "below threshold”. That's a major achievement. I am not sure about RCS as the benchmark as not sure how useful that is in practice. It just produced really nice numbers. If I had a few billions of pocket change around, would I buy this to run RCS really fast? -Nah, probably not. I'll get more excited when they factor numbers at a rate that would break public key crypto. For that would spend my pocket change!
  • vessenes 2y ago
    The implication seems to be that they can implement other gates. As my gen z kids say: huge if true.
    • wasabi991011 2y ago
      It's really important to note that the error correction test and the random circuit test are separate tests. The error correction is producing a single logical qubit of quantum memory, i.e. a single qubit with no gates applied to it. Meanwhile, the random circuit sampling uses physical qubits with no error correction, and is used as a good benchmark in part because it can prove "quantumness" even in the presence of noise.[1] [1] https://research.google/blog/validating-random-circuit-sampling-as-a-benchmark-for-measuring-quantum-progress/ https://research.google/blog/validating-random-circuit-sampl...
• fidotron 2y ago
  The slightly mind blowing bit is detailed here: > https://research.google/blog/making-quantum-error-correction-work/ https://research.google/blog/making-quantum-error-correction... “the first quantum processor where error-corrected qubits get exponentially better as they get bigger” Achieving this turns the normal problem of scaling quantum computation upside down.
  • thrance 2y ago
    It also breaks a fundamental law of quantum theory, that the bigger a system in a quantum state is, the faster it collapses, exponentially so. Which should at least tell you to take Google's announcement with z grain of salt.
    • wasabi991011 2y ago
      This is not a "fundamental law of quantum theory", as evidenced by the field of quantum error correcting codes. Google's announcement is legit, and is in line with what theory and simulations expect.
  • bgnn 2y ago
    Hmm why? I thought the whole idea was this would work eventually. Physical qubit vs logical qubit distinction is there already for a long time. The scaling problem is multifaceted. IMHO the physical qubits are the biggest barrier to scaling.
    • fidotron 2y ago
      > Hmm why? In theory, theory and practice are the same.
• whimsicalism 2y ago
  We need to seriously think if our systems/society are even remotely ready for this.
  • germandiago 2y ago
    In order to evolve, forbiding evolution is the wrong path. Just use and study and learn from new things and accumulate experience is the way to go.
    • kridsdale1 2y ago
      Biological evolution occurs on the backs of millions of deaths.
      • deleted 2y ago
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      • hello_computer 2y ago
        and a few extinctions!
  • _benj 2y ago
    This comment reminded me of the TV show I've been recently watching on Netflix, Pantheon. It's about a different technical breakthrough (I don't want to put any spoilers), but it's also something that completely alters society, no security is able to deal with that new technology, first thing that happens is that the technology is weaponized... etc. Idk enough about quantum computing to even understand this... but a technology that turns, say, AES or Blowfish, suddenly trivial to crack would very likely change the world
    • kridsdale1 2y ago
      This is how I feel about drones.
      • 2y ago
• taf2 2y ago
  Is this using ionq or is this in-house from google?
  • vessenes 2y ago
    They say in-house with their own US fab in the announcement.
• DebtDeflation 2y ago
  >the more qubits we use in Willow, the more we reduce errors, and the more quantum the system becomes That's an EXTRAORDINARY claim and one that contradicts the experience of pretty much all other research and development in quantum error correction over the course of the history of quantum computing.
  • wasabi991011 2y ago
    It's really not so extraordinary, exponential reduction in logical errors when the physical error rate is below a threshold (for certain types of error correcting codes_ is well accepted an both theoretical and computational grounds. For a rough but well-sourced overview, see Wikipedia: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Threshold_theorem https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Threshold_theorem For a review paper on surface codes, see A. G. Fowler, M. Mariantoni, J. M. Martinis, and A. N. Cleland, “Surface codes: Towards practical large-scale quantum computation,” Phys. Rev. A, vol. 86, no. 3, p. 032324, Sep. 2012, doi: 10.1103/PhysRevA.86.032324.
    • DebtDeflation 2y ago
      Does this not assume uncorrelated errors?
      • wasabi991011 2y ago
        It does. It's up to engineering to make errors uncorrelated. The google paper being referenced actually makes an "error budget" to see what the main sources of errors are, and also run tests to find sources of correlated errors. The claim about this is that correlated errors will lead to an "error floor", a certain size of error correction past which exponential reduction in errors no longer applies, due to a certain frequency of correlated errors. See figure 3a of the arxiv version of the paper: https://arxiv.org/abs/2408.13687 https://arxiv.org/abs/2408.13687
  • qnleigh 2y ago
    I wouldn't call it extraordinary, as this has been expected since the first quantum error correcting codes were worked out theoretically. But it is a strong claim, backed up with comparably strong evidence. Figure 1d of the paper shows exactly this https://arxiv.org/html/2408.13687v1 https://arxiv.org/html/2408.13687v1, and unlike many other comparable works, there are no hat tricks like post-selection to boost the numbers.
• deanCommie 2y ago
  I don't want to judge people by their cover, but I want to confess to having those feelings right now. In this day and age, I feel an immediate sense of distrust to any technologist with the "Burning Man" aesthetic for lack of a better word. (which you can see in the author's wikipedia profile from an adjacent festival -> https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hartmut_Neven https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hartmut_Neven, as well as in this blog itself with his wristbands and sunglasses -> https://youtu.be/l_KrC1mzd0g?si=HQdB3NSsLBPTSv-B&t=39 https://youtu.be/l_KrC1mzd0g?si=HQdB3NSsLBPTSv-B&t=39) In the 2000's, any embracement of alternative culture was a breath of fresh air for technologists - it showed they cared about the human element of society as much as the mathematics. But nowadays, especially in a post-truthiness, post-COVID world, it comes off in a different way to me. Our world is now filled with quasi-scientific cults. From flat earthers to anti-vaxxers, to people focused on "healing crystals", to the resurgence of astrology. I wouldn't be saying this about anyone in a more shall we say "classical" domain. As a technologist, your claims are pretty easily verifiable and testable, even on fuzzy areas like large language models. But in the Quantum world? I immediately start to approach the author of this with distrust: * He's writing about multiverses * He's claiming a quantum performance for something that would take a classical computer septillions of years. I'm a layman in this domain. If these were true, should they be front page news on CNN and the BBC? Or is this just how technology breakthroughs start (after all the Transformer paper wasn't) But no matter what I just can't help but feel like the author's choices harm the credibility of the work. Before you downvote me, consider replying instead. I'm not defending feeling this way. I'm just explaining what I feel and why.
  • bubblyworld 2y ago
    I don't share your mistrust of the aesthetic, but I think it's pretty natural to be skeptical of the out-group, so to speak, doubly so if you have no practical way of verifying their claims. At least you're honest about it! I guess something to think about it that amongst a group like the "burners" there is huge variety in individual experience and skill. And even within a single human mind it's possible to have radically groundbreaking thoughts in one domain, and simultaneously be a total crack-pot in another. Linus Pauling and the vitamin C thing comes to mind. There's no such thing as an average person! I guess we'll see what the quantum experts have to say about this in the weeks to come =)
• pandemic_region 2y ago
  > Willow performed a standard benchmark computation in under five minutes that would take one of today’s fastest supercomputers 10 septillion years — a number that vastly exceeds the age of the Universe. What computation would that be? Also, what is the relationship, if any, between quantum computing and AI? Are these technologies complementary?
  • ra7 2y ago
    It's in the article. Random circuit sampling benchmark: https://research.google/blog/validating-random-circuit-sampling-as-a-benchmark-for-measuring-quantum-progress/ https://research.google/blog/validating-random-circuit-sampl...
    • crote 2y ago
      Is it really fair to call that "computation"? I am definitely not an expert, but it seems they are just doing a meaningless operation which happens to be trivial on a quantum computer but near-impossible to simulate on a classical computer. To me that sounds a bit like saying my "sand computer" (hourglass) is way faster than a classical computer, because it'd take a classical computer trillions of years to exactly simulate the final position of every individual grain of sand. Sure, it proves that your quantum computer is actually a genuine quantum computer, but it's not going to be topping the LINPACK charts or factoring large semiprimes any time soon, is it?
      • becquerel 2y ago
        As they say explicitly in the article, this is like criticizing the first rocket to reach the edge of space for not getting anywhere useful.
        • crote 2y ago
          It seems like they went from lighting a candle to firing off some fireworks. Impressive, but there's still a long way to go until they can land a human on the moon - let alone travel to Alpha Centauri like some people are claiming.
• sys32768 2y ago
  In other words, get off the cloud so nobody has your encrypted data which they will be able to crack in a few minutes five or ten years from now?
  • noident 2y ago
    It depends on the algorithm you use to encrypt your data. Only asymmetric cryptography is threatened. There is no realistic threat to symmetric encryption like AES. If you are encrypting your cloud data with ed25519 or RSA, then yes, a quantum computer could theoretically someday crack them.
    • Havoc 2y ago
      > Only asymmetric cryptography is threatened. aka everything we use daily
• codeulike 2y ago
  They opened the API for it and I'm sending requests but the response always comes back 300ms before I send the request, is there a way of handling that with try{} predestined{} blocks? Or do I need to use the Bootstrap Paradox library?
  • timcobb 2y ago
    What does Gemini say?
    • KTibow 2y ago
      It responds with 4500 characters: https://hst.sh/olahososos.md https://hst.sh/olahososos.md
  • wk_end 2y ago
    Finally, INTERCAL’s COME FROM statement has a practical use.
  • handfuloflight 2y ago
    Have you tried using the Schrödinger Exception Handler? It catches errors both before and after they occur simultaneously, until you observe the stack trace.
    • oblio 2y ago
      I swear I can't tell which of these comments are sarcastic/parody and which are actual answers. A sort of quantum commenting conundrum, I guess.
      • camillomiller 2y ago
        They are both, just until the moment you try to read them
        • weakwire 2y ago
          I read them as sarcastic. Please reply here with your output.
• kernal 2y ago
  >Willow’s performance on this benchmark is astonishing: It performed a computation in under five minutes that would take one of today’s fastest supercomputers 1025 or 10 septillion years. If you want to write it out, it’s 10,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000 years. This mind-boggling number exceeds known timescales in physics and vastly exceeds the age of the universe. It lends credence to the notion that quantum computation occurs in many parallel universes, in line with the idea that we live in a multiverse, a prediction first made by David Deutsch. A much simpler explanation is that your benchmark is severely flawed.
  • wasabi991011 2y ago
    "Severely flawed" is a matter of interpretation, and I don't want to argue for or against. But to put into context, these numbers are likely accurate, but represent the time it would take for a very naive classical algorithm (possibly brute-force, I am unsure). For example, the previous result claimed it would take Summit 10,000 years to do the same calculation as the Sycamore quantum chip. However, other researchers were able to reproduce results classically using tensor-network-based methods in 14.5 days using a "relatively small cluster". [1] [1] G. Kalachev, P. Panteleev, P. Zhou, and M.-H. Yung, “Classical sampling of random quantum circuits with bounded fidelity,” arXiv.org, https://arxiv.org/abs/2112.15083 https://arxiv.org/abs/2112.15083 (accessed Dec. 9, 2024).
• xnx 2y ago
  Is anyone else even close to Google in this space? (e.g. on the "System Metrics" the blog defines)
  • wasabi991011 2y ago
    I would expect IBM, but I can't find any information on their system metrics based on a quick google search. Would love if someone could weight in.
  • lanthissa 2y ago
    not publicly
  • taf2 2y ago
    IonQ - they are powering AWS solution here: https://aws.amazon.com/braket/quantum-computers/ionq/ https://aws.amazon.com/braket/quantum-computers/ionq/ Not sure if they are close in terms of specs but looks like they are a viable solution and seeing an increase in utilization over the last year... Seems both are pretty interesting to keep an eye on.
  • EvgeniyZh 2y ago
    Main players IMHO are IBM and Quantinuum, the latter employing different platform (ions). Neither could perform the same experiment I think, but have their own advantages. QuEra also looks good but are not as mature yet imho.
  • paxys 2y ago
    Give it a few more years and a smaller, more focused company will come in and launch a successful product based on their research.
  • cahaya 2y ago
    I'm wondering how this Google announcement will have an impact on their future revenue, and how easily competitors can replicate this breakthrough?
  • krick 2y ago
    I would be very grateful if somebody can point to an actually good blogpost/video that would summarize the current state of the domain. I mean, I remember some "quantum annealing" providers as far as some 10 years ago (I mean, as a service, as such D-Wave exists for 25 years now), but I never actually learned if they are truly useful for anything (like, real numbers, what amount of computation these thing can perform and if it's truly cheaper/faster than throwing a bunch of GPUs on it). From time to time there are some news feturing dope photos, about some new chip from IBM, that is useful for nothing, but a big breakthrough for reasons I don't understand. But I don't really have a feel of what's going on, really. How many quantum computers there are, is there anything that is actually capable of performing anything more than just being an ongoing research prototype? Some educated guesses about how far can be some non-public projects by now? Like, is it possible that some secret CIA project is further ahead than what we know, or if it's even more unlikely and farther away than fusion power? Or maybe it's even more comparable to cold fusion? I know, that this kinda exists as an idea, and apparently somebody's working on it, but that's pretty much it.
• deleted 2y ago
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• fguerraz 2y ago
  Am I oversimplifying in thinking that they’ve demonstrated that their quantum computer is better than at simulating a quantum system than a classical computer? In which case, should I be impressed? I mean sure, it sounds like you’ve implemented a quantum VM.
  • TachyonicBytes 2y ago
    Simulating a quantum system is a hard challenge and it's actually how Feynman proposed the quantum computing paradigm in the first place. It's basically the original motive.
    • freetonik 2y ago
      Exactly. I’ve seen lots of people dismissing this as if it isn’t impressive or important. I’ve watched one video where the author said in a deprecating manner “quantum computers are good for just two things: generating random numbers and simulating quantum systems”. It’s like saying “the thing is good for just two things: making funny noises and producing infinite energy”. (Also, generating random numbers is pretty useful, but I digress)
• slater 2y ago
  I bet Vimeo videos will still chug on it
• TachyonicBytes 2y ago
  Link to the actual article: https://www.nature.com/articles/s41586-024-08449-y https://www.nature.com/articles/s41586-024-08449-y
  • qnleigh 2y ago
    and the arXiv preprint, which isn't paywalled https://arxiv.org/html/2408.13687v1 https://arxiv.org/html/2408.13687v1
    • wasabi991011 2y ago
      And contains more information, figures, and lots of supplementary material.
• zelon88 2y ago
  > It lends credence to the notion that quantum computation occurs in many parallel universes, in line with the idea that we live in a multiverse, a prediction first made by David Deutsch. Can someone explain to me how he made the jump from "we achieved a meaninful threshold in quantum computing performance" to "The multiverse is probably real."
  • dekhn 2y ago
    The explanation is that Hartmut Neven has a bunch of sci-fi beliefs and somehow has managed to hold onto his job and even get to write parts of press releases.
  • not_a_bot_4sho 2y ago
    My money is on edibles.
• radioactivist 2y ago
  Some of these results have been on the arxiv for a few months (https://arxiv.org/abs/2408.13687 https://arxiv.org/abs/2408.13687) -- are there any details on new stuff besides this blog post? I can't find anything on the random circuit sampling in the preprint (or its early access published version).
  • qnleigh 2y ago
    The peer-reviewed version at Nature has more technical details about the processor itself.
• ryandvm 2y ago
  Imagine your civilization develops quantum computing technology and it's for... advertising. "What is their mission? Cure cancer? Eliminate poverty? Explore the universe? No, their goal: to sell another fucking Nissan." --Scott Galloway
  • mperham 2y ago
    That's how you monetize attention, digital consumption. If you aren't paying for it, you are the product being sold.
    • NoOn3 2y ago
      In modern world, sometimes, even if you pay for it, it doesn't always give guarantees... :(
• softwaredoug 2y ago
  With this plus the weather model announcement. I’m curious what people think about the meta question on why corporate labs like Google DeepMind etc seem to make more progress on big problems than academia? There are a lot of critiques about academia. In particular that it’s so grant obsessed you have to stay focused on your next grant all the time. This environment doesnt seem to reward solving big problems but paper production to prove the last grant did something. Yet ostensibly we fund fundamental public research precisely for fundamental changes. The reality seems to be the traditional funding model create incremental progress within existing paradigms.
  • LeftHandPath 2y ago
    I did quantum computing research in university. We did meaningful work and published meaningful research. Around 50% of our time was spent working in Overleaf making small improvements to old projects so that we could submit to some new journal or call-for-papers. We were always doing peer review or getting peer reviewed. We were working with a lot of 3rd-party tools (e.g. FPGAs, IBM Q, etc). And our team was constantly churning due to people getting their degrees and leaving, people getting too busy with coursework, and people deciding they just weren't interested anymore. Compare that to the corporate labs: They have a fully proprietary ecosystem. The people who developed that ecosystem are often the ones doing research on/with it. They aren't taking time off of their ideas to handle peer-review processes. They aren't taking time off to handle unrelated coursework. Their researchers don't graduate and start looking for professor positions at other universities. It's not surprising in the slightest that the corporate labs do better. They're more focused and better suited for long-term research.
    • softwaredoug 2y ago
      I wonder what makes research different than product development at a company? Because in product development, there can be short-sighted industry decisions based on quarterly returns. I've also seen a constant need to justify outcomes based on KPIs etc, and constantly justifying your work, etc.
      • 2y ago
• andrewla 2y ago
  This is yet another attempt to posit NISQ results (Noisy Intermediate Scale Quantum) as demonstrations of quantum supremacy. This does not allow us to do useful computational work; it's just making the claim that a bathtub full of water can do fluid dynamic simulations faster than a computer with a bathtub-full-of-water-number-of-cores can do the same computation. If history is any guide we'll soon see that there are problems with the fidelity (the system they use to verify that the results are "correct") or problems with the difficulty of the underlying problem, as happened with Google's previous attempt to demonstrate quantum supremacy [1]. [1] https://gilkalai.wordpress.com/2024/12/09/the-case-against-googles-claims-of-quantum-supremacy-a-very-short-introduction/ https://gilkalai.wordpress.com/2024/12/09/the-case-against-g... -- note that although coincidentally published the same day as this announcement, this is talking about Google's previous results, not Willow.
• cryptozeus 2y ago
  QTUM
  • cloudking 2y ago
    Contains MSTR and not GOOG...
    • cryptozeus 2y ago
      Point is to get in before goog gets in
• djoldman 2y ago
  I wonder if anyone else will be forced to wait on https://scottaaronson.blog/ https://scottaaronson.blog/ to tell us if this is significant.
  • gloriousduke 2y ago
    I was about to add a similar comment. Definitely interested to read his evaluation and whether there is more hype than substance here, though I'm guessing it may take some time.
  • EvgeniyZh 2y ago
    He told when the preprint was published https://scottaaronson.blog/?p=8310 https://scottaaronson.blog/?p=8310
  • qnleigh 2y ago
    He's already blogged about it a bit here https://scottaaronson.blog/?p=8310#comments https://scottaaronson.blog/?p=8310#comments and here https://scottaaronson.blog/?p=8329 https://scottaaronson.blog/?p=8329 though I bet he will have more to say now that the paper is officially out.
• arresin 2y ago
  This is weird. I got this pop up halfway through reading: > After reading this article, how has your perception of Google changed? Gotten better Gotten worse Stayed the same
• beyondCritics 2y ago
  >It lends credence to the notion that quantum computation occurs in many parallel universes, in line with the idea that we live in a multiverse, a prediction first made by David Deutsch. Makes sense, or doesn't it? What's your take on the multiverse theory?
• dom96 2y ago
  Can anyone comment on how this chip is built? What does the hardware look like?
• stan_kirdey 2y ago
  Is anyone fine-tuning llama to write Q#? I feel LLMs can be a helpful tool in learning how to code quantum systems.
• dtquad 2y ago
  Do Americans still want to breakup the big US tech companies like Google? With proper regulation it feels like their positive externalities, like this, is good for humanity.
  • 0_____0 2y ago
    "Proper regulation" may involve breaking companies into pieces such that they cannot dominate industries and deprive the public the option of choosing a different provider for the services they provide. Does an Alphabet subsidiary working on quantum computer research require 90% of search traffic to go through Google? Or for Android handsets to send a really phenomenal amount of telemetry back to the mothership with no real recourse for the average user?
  • skort 2y ago
    The key words here are "proper regulation". In an era where industries have captured governmental bodies, there will likely be no such regulation, and these tech companies will continue to siphon up resources and funnel them to a handful at the top. A quote from the article is especially ludicrous: > to benefit society by advancing scientific discovery, developing helpful applications, and tackling some of society's greatest challenges You don't need a quantum computer to do this. We can solve housing and food scarcity today, arguably our greatest challenges. Big tech has been claiming that it's going to solve all of our problems for decades now and it has yet to put up. If you want this type of technology to be made and do actual good, we need publicly funded research institutions. Tech won't save us.
    • noisy_boy 2y ago
      Regulation is the handle of the chainsaw aka corporation. Right now it is a bit wobbly which explains the cuts on the society we see around us. The faster we make the blades turn due to technological advances, the firmer the handle needs to be.
• correlator 2y ago
  I met julian touring UCSB as perspective grad students. We sat together at dinner and he was really smart, kind, and outgoing. Great to see him presenting this work!
• robot 2y ago
  there is so much skepticism on quantum computing that instead of inflated marketing words one should always start by what the biggest problems are, how they are not still solved yet, and then introduce what the new improvement is. Otherwise there is no knowing if the accomplishment is really significant or not.
  • gauge_field 2y ago
    Especially if you consider how they choose the words and how they can be interpreted " Second, Willow performed a standard benchmark computation in under five minutes that would take one of today’s " Standard benchmark in what sense. Well, it was chosen for task where quantum computer would have better performance. I am not saying this is nothing. Maybe, use more reserved words, e.g. "special quantum oriented benchmark" or something. When I think of standard benchmark, I am thinking more common scenarios, e.g. searching, sorting, matrix multiplication.
• Daniela4565 2y ago
  [flagged]
• Sakurai_Quantum 2y ago
  [dead]
  • Sakurai_Quantum 2y ago
    Here is a free preview (lecture 6): https://youtu.be/6rf-hjyNl4U https://youtu.be/6rf-hjyNl4U
• staunton 2y ago
  This is a great technical achievement. It gives me some hope to see that the various companies are able to invest into what is still very basic science, even if it were mostly as vanity projects for advertising purposes. Quantum computing will surely have amazing applications that we cannot even conceive of right now. The earliest and maybe most useful applications might be in material science and medicine. I'm somewhat disappointed that most discussions here focus on cryptography or even cryptocurrencies. People will just switch to post-quantum algorithms and most likely still have decades left to do so. Almost all data we have isn't important enough that intercept-now-decrypt-later really matters, and if you think you have such data, switch now... Breaking cryptography is the most boring and useless application (among actual applications) of quantum computing. It's purely adversarial, merely an inconsequential step in a pointless arms race that we'd love to stop, if only we could learn to trust each other. To focus on this really betrays a lack of imagination.
  • rgmerk 2y ago
    “Quantum computing will surely have amazing applications that we cannot even conceive of right now…” As best I understand, it’s not clear yet whether quantum computing will ever have any practical applications. Furthermore, there has already been a great deal of work identifying potential applications for a quantum computer, so I’d say we’ve got a fair idea of what you could do with one if it ever exists.
    • gauge_field 2y ago
      The first (and important enough) practical application (apart from breaking RSA) seems to be simulation of quantum systems. But, this has some problems since alot of quantum models can be simulated with Deep Learning methods (getting better) to a good approximation. Probably, some quantum systems wont be good for (classical) Deep Learning, those might be the first candidates for application of quantum computers.
• hi41 2y ago
  What benchmark is being referred here? >>Willow performed a standard benchmark computation in under five minutes that would take one of today’s fastest supercomputers 10 septillion (that is, 1025) years — a number that vastly exceeds the age of the Universe
  • dbrans 2y ago
    https://research.google/blog/validating-random-circuit-sampling-as-a-benchmark-for-measuring-quantum-progress/ https://research.google/blog/validating-random-circuit-sampl...
• hi41 2y ago
  If error is getting corrected, doesn’t it mean lower entropy? If so where else is entropy increasing, if it is a valid question to be asked.
  • roywiggins 2y ago
    Probably the same as normal chips: waste heat?
• codeyperson 2y ago
  If we are in a simulation. This seems like a good path to getting our process terminated for consuming too much compute.
  • prettyStandard 2y ago
    AI too. I've followed Many worlds & Simulation theory a bit too far and I ended up back where I started. I feel like the most likely scenario is we are in a AI (kinder)garden being grown for future purposes. So God is real, heaven is real, and your intentions matter. Obviously I have no proof...
    • swores 2y ago
      > "and your intentions matter." How do you reach that conclusion? Characters in The Sims games technically have us human players as gods, it doesn't mean that when we uninstall the game those characters get to come into our earthly (to them) heaven or have any consequences for actions performed during the simulation?
      • prettyStandard 2y ago
        Sure it would. If you had Sims that went around killing other Sims, there's no way in hell you would promote them, or use their stimulated experiences as a bases for more complex/serious projects. I'm not deep into LLMs or AI safety right now, but if you have a bad performing AI, you aren't going to use it as a base for future work. I was about to go to bed so I was rushing through my initial comment... I was just trying to understand the motivations for trying to create a stimulated reality... Look at the resources we spend on AI?
        • djhn 2y ago
          One would have to be rather optimistic and patient if one was to hold out hope for the humanity experiment to not be destined for the Trash bin in this scenario, with our track record.
  • 2y ago
• rkagerer 2y ago
  How much support infrastructure does this thing need? (eg. Cryogenic cooling?) How big is a whole 'computer' and how much power draw?
• Havoc 2y ago
  So is it time to 100x key length on browsers yet or not?
  • bwesterb 2y ago
    About 8x just for key agreement and 40x for signatures. It's a lot. For key agreement it's worth it, and now about 1/3 of browsers in the wild use it. http://radar.cloudflare.com/adoption-and-u… http://radar.cloudflare.com/adoption-and-u…
• jxdxbx 2y ago
  More misleading random circuit sampling benchmarks. All it proves is that Google has built a quantum computer that does quantum things.
• webdevver 2y ago
  what is this actually useful for?
• mvkel 2y ago
  Seems to coincide with Google's annual quantum announcement, which has happened each fall since 2014
  • riku_iki 2y ago
    annual perf cycle probably
• rvz 2y ago
  I don’t usually say this often, unlike most here but this is actually a huge achievement in quantum computing. Yet another example as to why Google is essentially not going anywhere or ‘dying’ as most have been proclaiming these days.
• Uptrenda 2y ago
  'It lends credence to the notion that quantum computation occurs in many parallel universes, in line with the idea that we live in a multiverse, a prediction first made by David Deutsch.' Wait... what? Google said this and not some fringe crackpot?
• attentionmech 2y ago
  What does it mean when they say that the computations are happening in multiverse? I didn't know we are that advanced already :)
  • attentionmech 2y ago
    I don't know why i got downvoted. "It lends credence to the notion that quantum computation occurs in many parallel universes, in line with the idea that we live in a multiverse, a prediction first made by David Deutsch." -- this is from the article itself.
• GilKalai 2y ago
  In the past five years I participated in a project (with Yosi Rinott and Tomer Shoham) to carefully examine the Google's 2019 "supremacy" claim. A short introduction to our work is described here: https://gilkalai.wordpress.com/2024/12/09/the-case-against-googles-claims-of-quantum-supremacy-a-very-short-introduction/ https://gilkalai.wordpress.com/2024/12/09/the-case-against-g.... We found in that experiment statistically unreasonable predictions (predictions that were "too good to be true") indicating methodological flaws. We also found evidence of undocumented global optimization in the calibration process. In view of these and other findings my conclusion is that Google Quantum AI’s claims (including published ones) should be approached with caution, particularly those of an extraordinary nature. These claims may stem from significant methodological errors and, as such, may reflect the researchers’ expectations more than objective scientific reality.
  • janpmz 2y ago
    I've heared claims before that quantum computers are not real. But I didn't understand it. Can anybody explain the reasoning behind the criticism? Are they just simulated?
    • Rhapso 2y ago
      So the basics: - quantum physics are real, this isn't about debating that. The theory underpinning quantum computing is real. - quantum annealing is theoretically real, but not the same "breakthrough" that a quantum computer would be. Z-wave and google have made these. - All benchmark computations have been about simulating a smaller quantum computer or annealer. which these systems can do faster than a brute force classical search. These are literally the only situation where "quantum supremacy" exists. - There is literally no claim of "productive" computation being made by a quantum computer. Only simulations of our assumptions about quantum systems. - The critical gap is "quantum error correction", proof that they can use many error prone physical qubits to simulate a smaller system with lower error. There isn't proof yet that is actually possible. This result they are claiming, is they have "critical error correction" is the single most groundbreaking result we could have in quantum computing. Their evidence does not satisfy the burden of proof. They also only claim to have 1 qubit, which is intrinsically useless, and doesn't examine the costs of simulating multiple interacting qubits.
• raminf 2y ago
  Relatives were asking for a basic explainer. Here's a good one by Hannah Fry: https://youtu.be/1_gJp2uAjO0 https://youtu.be/1_gJp2uAjO0
• crishoj 2y ago
  Take the announcement with a grain of salt. From German physicist Sabine Hoffenfelder: > The particular calculation in question is to produce a random distribution. The result of this calculation has no practical use. > > They use this particular problem because it has been formally proven (with some technical caveats) that the calculation is difficult to do on a conventional computer (because it uses a lot of entanglement). That also allows them to say things like "this would have taken a septillion years on a conventional computer" etc. > > It's exactly the same calculation that they did in 2019 on a ca 50 qubit chip. In case you didn't follow that, Google's 2019 quantum supremacy claim was questioned by IBM pretty much as soon as the claim was made and a few years later a group said they did it on a conventional computer in a similar time. https://x.com/skdh/status/1866352680899104960 https://x.com/skdh/status/1866352680899104960
  • l33tman 2y ago
    TBH you need to take the youtube influencer Sabine Hoffenfelder with a bigger grain of salt. She has converted to mainly posting clickbait youtube stuff over the last years (unfortunately, she was interesting to listen to earlier). The RCS is a common benchmark with no practical value, as is stated several times in the blog announcement as well. It's used because if a quantum computer can't do that, it can't do any other calculation either. The main contribution here seems to be what they indeed put first, which is the error correction scaling.
    • falleng0d 2y ago
      I have observed the change in approach to use aggressive (clickbaity) thumbnails, but I do think the quality of the content has not changed. And I can't blame her for adopting this trend, in many cases it is the difference between surviving or not on YouTube nowadays.
      • dexterdog 2y ago
        How would she not survive on YouTube? Would they block her posts if she didn't use a misleading title and thumbnail (shout-out to dearrow for those who despise this practice)?
• _joel 2y ago
  But can it run Crysis?
• whiplash451 2y ago
  Newbie's question: how far is the RCS benchmark from a more practical challenge such as breaking RSA? The article concludes by saying that the former does not have practical applications. Why are they not using benchmarks that have some?
  • Hilift 2y ago
    There are already companies selling 5,000+ qubit quantum systems to the NSA. I would assume they are already using it for that in the huge data center in Utah.
    • underdeserver 2y ago
      Which companies? And how big an RSA key do 5,000+ qubit quantum systems break?
    • makeworld 2y ago
      Source?
  • wasabi991011 2y ago
    Very far. I'm not sure how to put it quantitatively, but my impression from listening to experts give technical presentations is that the breaking-rsa-type algorithms are a decade or two away. This is very soon from a security perspective, as all you need is to store current data and break it in the future. But it is not soon enough to use for benchmarking current systems.
• ramonverse 2y ago
  Can't wait for Google to release a breakthrough paper in 5 years just for the authors to leave and build OpenQuant
• machina_ex_deus 2y ago
  You learn a lot by what isn't mentioned. Willow had 101 qubits in the quantum error correction experiment, yet only mere 67 qubits in the random circuit sampling experiment. Why did they not test random circuit sampling with the full set of qubits? Maybe when turning on the full 101 set of qubits, qubits fidelity dropped. Remember macroscopic objects have 10^23=2^76 particles, so until 76 qubits are reached and exceeded, I remain skeptical that the quantum system actually exploits an exponential Hilbert space, instead of the state being classically encoded by the particles somehow. I bet Google is struggling just at this threshold and they don't announce it.
• singlewind 2y ago
  Now, this is really make other countries nervous. Basically, existing cryptography technology is in danger.
• cubefox 2y ago
  Notice how the most interesting part, the image with their quantum computing roadmap, has too low a resolution to read the relevant text at the bottom. Come on Google.
• EGreg 2y ago
  Any chance people will actually start reversing SHA1 hashes in the next few years? Is there any quantum algorithm for reversing one-way functions like that? (I mention SHA1 because they can find collissions.)
• yalogin 2y ago
  Trying to understand how compute happens in Quantum computers. Is there a basic explanation of how superposition leads to computing? From chatgpt, "with n qubits a QC can be in a superposition of 2^n different states. This means that QCs can potentially perform computations on an exponential number of inputs at once" I don't get how the first sentence in that quote leads to the second one. Any pointers to read to understand this?
• johndhi 2y ago
  Genuinely curious: does this make US regulators second-guess breaking up Google? Having a USA company be the first to develop quantum computing would be a major national security advantage.