8 ms·

IBM Quantum Nighthawk R2

88 points by fuglede_ 16d ago

zarzavat 13d ago
What's the largest semiprime it can factor?
- d3m0t3p 13d ago
  They are currently targeting more material science, such as quantum chemistry for drugs discovery or new material discovery. They can’t and do not aim to do prime factorization on those.
  - Aboutplants 13d ago
    Good
- upofadown 13d ago
  You can attempt 15 yourself if you want: https://towardsdatascience.com/where-are-we-with-shors-algorithm/ https://towardsdatascience.com/where-are-we-with-shors-algor... If you run it over and over again you will eventually get 3 or 5...
- Strilanc 12d ago
  Currently the two qubit gate error rate is listed as ~2.7e-3 (see https://quantum.cloud.ibm.com/computers?system=ibm_phoenix https://quantum.cloud.ibm.com/computers?system=ibm_phoenix but note it will vary from day to day). That implies you can expect ~400 entangling gates before experiencing an error. A zero-shenanigans factoring of 21 takes ~2000 entangling gates. So it's not good enough to factor 21 in any meaningful sense. Really what matters about this chip is that it is better suited for error correction. They have a square grid connectivity (previous IBM chips incurred fatal overheads from their heavy hex connectivity), they can actually reset their qubits now (previous IBM chips couldn't scale to long running computations because once leakage arose nothing could remove it except waiting a long time), and they have tunable couplers instead of fixed frequency ones (previous IBM chips were just doomed whenever some problem happened to land on their operating area in frequency space). Most interesting quantum computations take millions or billions of gates. Factoring classically intractable numbers takes tens of billions of gates. No one is going to do that many quantum gates without error correction. Whenever a quantum computing company says anything other than "it made error correction better" or "it will make error correction better", you can ignore that. It's just some side quest. Maybe it's interesting in and of itself, but it's not what matters for progress.
- fuglede_ 12d ago
  FWIW, Scott Aaronson has likened the question on factorization of concrete instances to what happened during the Manhattan Project: > Joe #11: Then you’ll be waiting a long time, because that’s a stupid metric. (Or rather: anyone willing to use that metric today, is probably someone you shouldn’t trust.) It’s almost exactly analogous to judging the Manhattan Project in 1942, 1943, 1944 by the metric “how big an explosion can you make, today?” I.e., it’s something that’s going to be basically flat for a long time and then undergo a step change, under the assumption that everything is progressing as it should—because you need a critical mass in the one case and to exceed the fault-tolerance threshold in the other. https://scottaaronson.blog/?p=4121#comment-1804101 https://scottaaronson.blog/?p=4121#comment-1804101
  - zarzavat 12d ago
    I agree and I was being facetious since I know the answer is nothing much. The point is that IBM write all this breathless marketing copy that seems detached from the actual utility of the device. Although I believe there's a difference with the Manhattan project. The original atom bomb was "useful" even at its small scale. Whereas there's likely to be a lot of time between a quantum computer that can factor 69 and a quantum computer that can factor RSA 2048.
    - jryle70 12d ago
      > IBM write all this breathless marketing copy that seems detached from the actual utility of the device What are the actual utility according to IBM? Did they say you can order one today on their website? Or even "call us to get the pricing info"? Are there case studies of what their customers use it for? Or only potential uses? > Although I believe there's a difference with the Manhattan project. The original atom bomb was "useful" even at its small scale. No it was not useful, otherwise it'd have been paraded and hyped up on the media. The trinity test was in July 1945. Hiroshima happened in August. They were practically used as soon as they were deemed ready. Hundreds of thousands people died.
y-curious 13d ago
I don’t understand who the target audience of these ads is. For most people, including myself, this is like seeing an ad for “New and Improved Time Machine! (Untested)” or “Magic Beans - Indica”.
- Angostura 13d ago
  Investors
- d3m0t3p 13d ago
  I agree that they should be doing a press release and a separate technical deep dive. Here they mix both and don’t get the public. It has always been IBM problem to correctly target the product to the audience. We see it here again
- Brotkrumen 13d ago
  Everyone who is curious? I mean did you know that you can run something on a real quantum computer for free? Go try out something new, or are we only getting excited about the newest AI slop machine release these days?
- Zigurd 13d ago
  These ads are aimed at the board members of IBM's customers. IBM has been doing this for ages. I might think IBM is a high margin body shop with a veneer of innovative-ish projects like Watson that are almost comically out of step with the rest of the tech industry. But that's not the golf course discourse. The purpose is to make it safe to remain an IBM customer.
  - deleted 13d ago
    [deleted]
  - ghaff 13d ago
    And I'd add that there are a ton of quantum startups out there. Maybe they are all idiots. But, if you're IBM with a large research organization that's been working on some related foundational technologies for literally decades, it's not an obviously wrong-headed move for IBM Research to be working in this space.
ofrzeta 13d ago
Tangential question: do quantum researchers benefit from LLMs in any way?
- marzchipane 13d ago
  Quantum software engineer here - yes! I use Claude quite extensively with quantum SDKs like Qiskit and Pennylane. It tends to be very good at scaffolding and architecture, but can spiral or be outright incorrect when it comes to implementing certain algorithms like QAOA. The real benefit comes from real-world integration - if I'm exploring e.g. a logistics application, it can source real-world data and models very quickly, and suggest quantum appropriate-formulations. Nevertheless, a lot of hand-holding is required.
  - ghaff 13d ago
    Yes, I haven't looked at Qiskit for a while but I played with it for a bit when I was an IBM Quantum Ambassador. I don't know all the details off the top of my head but I know there has been AI integration work with OpenShift, Ansible, and RHEL.
jeanmichelselli 13d ago
These machines do not provide any computational speedup, we have plenty of papers coming from academic physicists clearly showing this. Why these people insist with their narrative is beyond my comprehension at this stage (maybe, artificially increase the value of their market shares?).. P.S. I was involved in semiconductor physics and quantum computing way before it became a buzz word.
- hn_submit 13d ago
  I too am convinced that RSA-4096 will remain secure for the foreseeable future. Why everyone's mental about quantum-safe encryption is beyond me.
  - lijok 13d ago
    Because peeps are doing HNDL (harvest now, decrypt later) today. They are intercepting your traffic and storing it until they can break crypto. They're doing that today. And they've been doing it for a while. There are contexts in which that's an unacceptable level of risk.
    - hn_submit 13d ago
      I'm personally more worried about flaws in the quantum-safe crypto schemes than in RSA, which is based on the age-old factorization problem of prime numbers. They can harvest all they want, but if no one ever invents a usable, practical and scalable quantum processor all this will be moot.
      - xhkkffbf 13d ago
        It would be ironic if the holes in the quantum-safe crypto meant that they were weaker than the old school options.
        johntb86 13d ago
        Generally people encrypt with both post-quantum crypto and regular crypto in series to prevent that from being a problem.
31337Logic 13d ago
From IBM: "The Quantum Nighthawk Ultimate Extreme Subatomic Interstellar Whizbang Mark II" Also from IBM: "Bob"
progbits 13d ago
Their cloud offering lists this with some specific calibration data: https://quantum.cloud.ibm.com/computers?system=ibm_phoenix https://quantum.cloud.ibm.com/computers?system=ibm_phoenix Does this mean they literally have a single one? (Or at least a single one they offer publicly)
m3kw9 13d ago
they made the pic look like it can be installed on an intel motherboard.
passive 13d ago
But can you run: IBM Bob On: IBM Quantum Nighthawk R2 ?

88 points by fuglede_ 16d ago

zarzavat 13d ago

What's the largest semiprime it can factor?

d3m0t3p 13d ago
They are currently targeting more material science, such as quantum chemistry for drugs discovery or new material discovery. They can’t and do not aim to do prime factorization on those.
- Aboutplants 13d ago
  Good
upofadown 13d ago
You can attempt 15 yourself if you want: https://towardsdatascience.com/where-are-we-with-shors-algorithm/ https://towardsdatascience.com/where-are-we-with-shors-algor... If you run it over and over again you will eventually get 3 or 5...
Strilanc 12d ago
Currently the two qubit gate error rate is listed as ~2.7e-3 (see https://quantum.cloud.ibm.com/computers?system=ibm_phoenix https://quantum.cloud.ibm.com/computers?system=ibm_phoenix but note it will vary from day to day). That implies you can expect ~400 entangling gates before experiencing an error. A zero-shenanigans factoring of 21 takes ~2000 entangling gates. So it's not good enough to factor 21 in any meaningful sense. Really what matters about this chip is that it is better suited for error correction. They have a square grid connectivity (previous IBM chips incurred fatal overheads from their heavy hex connectivity), they can actually reset their qubits now (previous IBM chips couldn't scale to long running computations because once leakage arose nothing could remove it except waiting a long time), and they have tunable couplers instead of fixed frequency ones (previous IBM chips were just doomed whenever some problem happened to land on their operating area in frequency space). Most interesting quantum computations take millions or billions of gates. Factoring classically intractable numbers takes tens of billions of gates. No one is going to do that many quantum gates without error correction. Whenever a quantum computing company says anything other than "it made error correction better" or "it will make error correction better", you can ignore that. It's just some side quest. Maybe it's interesting in and of itself, but it's not what matters for progress.
fuglede_ 12d ago
FWIW, Scott Aaronson has likened the question on factorization of concrete instances to what happened during the Manhattan Project: > Joe #11: Then you’ll be waiting a long time, because that’s a stupid metric. (Or rather: anyone willing to use that metric today, is probably someone you shouldn’t trust.) It’s almost exactly analogous to judging the Manhattan Project in 1942, 1943, 1944 by the metric “how big an explosion can you make, today?” I.e., it’s something that’s going to be basically flat for a long time and then undergo a step change, under the assumption that everything is progressing as it should—because you need a critical mass in the one case and to exceed the fault-tolerance threshold in the other. https://scottaaronson.blog/?p=4121#comment-1804101 https://scottaaronson.blog/?p=4121#comment-1804101
- zarzavat 12d ago
  I agree and I was being facetious since I know the answer is nothing much. The point is that IBM write all this breathless marketing copy that seems detached from the actual utility of the device. Although I believe there's a difference with the Manhattan project. The original atom bomb was "useful" even at its small scale. Whereas there's likely to be a lot of time between a quantum computer that can factor 69 and a quantum computer that can factor RSA 2048.
  - jryle70 12d ago
    > IBM write all this breathless marketing copy that seems detached from the actual utility of the device What are the actual utility according to IBM? Did they say you can order one today on their website? Or even "call us to get the pricing info"? Are there case studies of what their customers use it for? Or only potential uses? > Although I believe there's a difference with the Manhattan project. The original atom bomb was "useful" even at its small scale. No it was not useful, otherwise it'd have been paraded and hyped up on the media. The trinity test was in July 1945. Hiroshima happened in August. They were practically used as soon as they were deemed ready. Hundreds of thousands people died.

y-curious 13d ago

I don’t understand who the target audience of these ads is. For most people, including myself, this is like seeing an ad for “New and Improved Time Machine! (Untested)” or “Magic Beans - Indica”.

Angostura 13d ago
Investors
d3m0t3p 13d ago
I agree that they should be doing a press release and a separate technical deep dive. Here they mix both and don’t get the public. It has always been IBM problem to correctly target the product to the audience. We see it here again
Brotkrumen 13d ago
Everyone who is curious? I mean did you know that you can run something on a real quantum computer for free? Go try out something new, or are we only getting excited about the newest AI slop machine release these days?
Zigurd 13d ago
These ads are aimed at the board members of IBM's customers. IBM has been doing this for ages. I might think IBM is a high margin body shop with a veneer of innovative-ish projects like Watson that are almost comically out of step with the rest of the tech industry. But that's not the golf course discourse. The purpose is to make it safe to remain an IBM customer.
- deleted 13d ago
  [deleted]
- ghaff 13d ago
  And I'd add that there are a ton of quantum startups out there. Maybe they are all idiots. But, if you're IBM with a large research organization that's been working on some related foundational technologies for literally decades, it's not an obviously wrong-headed move for IBM Research to be working in this space.

ofrzeta 13d ago

Tangential question: do quantum researchers benefit from LLMs in any way?

marzchipane 13d ago
Quantum software engineer here - yes! I use Claude quite extensively with quantum SDKs like Qiskit and Pennylane. It tends to be very good at scaffolding and architecture, but can spiral or be outright incorrect when it comes to implementing certain algorithms like QAOA. The real benefit comes from real-world integration - if I'm exploring e.g. a logistics application, it can source real-world data and models very quickly, and suggest quantum appropriate-formulations. Nevertheless, a lot of hand-holding is required.
- ghaff 13d ago
  Yes, I haven't looked at Qiskit for a while but I played with it for a bit when I was an IBM Quantum Ambassador. I don't know all the details off the top of my head but I know there has been AI integration work with OpenShift, Ansible, and RHEL.

jeanmichelselli 13d ago

These machines do not provide any computational speedup, we have plenty of papers coming from academic physicists clearly showing this. Why these people insist with their narrative is beyond my comprehension at this stage (maybe, artificially increase the value of their market shares?).. P.S. I was involved in semiconductor physics and quantum computing way before it became a buzz word.

hn_submit 13d ago
I too am convinced that RSA-4096 will remain secure for the foreseeable future. Why everyone's mental about quantum-safe encryption is beyond me.
- lijok 13d ago
  Because peeps are doing HNDL (harvest now, decrypt later) today. They are intercepting your traffic and storing it until they can break crypto. They're doing that today. And they've been doing it for a while. There are contexts in which that's an unacceptable level of risk.
  - hn_submit 13d ago
    I'm personally more worried about flaws in the quantum-safe crypto schemes than in RSA, which is based on the age-old factorization problem of prime numbers. They can harvest all they want, but if no one ever invents a usable, practical and scalable quantum processor all this will be moot.
    - xhkkffbf 13d ago
      It would be ironic if the holes in the quantum-safe crypto meant that they were weaker than the old school options.
      - johntb86 13d ago
        Generally people encrypt with both post-quantum crypto and regular crypto in series to prevent that from being a problem.

31337Logic 13d ago

From IBM: "The Quantum Nighthawk Ultimate Extreme Subatomic Interstellar Whizbang Mark II" Also from IBM: "Bob"

progbits 13d ago

Their cloud offering lists this with some specific calibration data: https://quantum.cloud.ibm.com/computers?system=ibm_phoenix https://quantum.cloud.ibm.com/computers?system=ibm_phoenix Does this mean they literally have a single one? (Or at least a single one they offer publicly)

m3kw9 13d ago

they made the pic look like it can be installed on an intel motherboard.

passive 13d ago

But can you run: IBM Bob On: IBM Quantum Nighthawk R2 ?