Quantum Computers are Coming!
Posted by Ray @ 1:32 amJust a couple of days ago, dwave demonstrated the first real practically working quantum computer. This is a big deal, as a working quantum computer could render the strongest big prime-number-based encryption system completely useless.
Dwave’s computer currently solves sudoku puzzles. Within a few years, we might finally get a computer that can trash humans at go (implementing an efficient go algorithm is notoriously difficult).
There’s a lot of interesting analysis here, including one up by ars.technica that speculates that dwave is trying to set itself up as the next standard in quantum computing APIs (much like intel’s x86 architecture is the current standard).
But to me, this is just plain frickin’ cool. Just a few years ago researchers could only speculate about quantum computing. Now there’s a quantum computer, sitting there ready to carry Moore’s law into the next ridiculous generation.
We live in interesting times, my friends.