Quantum Or Not, New Supercomputer Is Certainly Something Else

This is a puff piece.<p>As <a href="http://www.scottaaronson.com/blog/?p=1400" rel="nofollow">http://www.scottaaronson.com/blog/?p=1400</a> makes clear, the current incarnation of D-Wave looks cool and costs a fortune, but is slower than a desktop PC running properly-optimized code. And that optimized code only needed to be written once because it solves the problem that D-Wave asks us to reduce all problems to before we can use D-Wave.

To be honest I never expected that we’d live to see a quantum computer in this decade. Despite of what D-Wave’s machine actually is the fact remains that we’re pretty close to achieving this milestone. How would this change the computer industry though is something I can’t even start to fathom.<p>What really interests me though as a programmer is whether we’d have to change our tools too when quantum computers become the norm. Would we have to adopt new programming techniques or we’d make it by refining the ones we already use? How would techniques like multithread programming evolve in a machine like this?

Any pointers to a technical presentation on how D-Wave's (or any other) quantum computing is physically implemented? For example, classical computers use silicon doped with impurities to form gates, and connected with metal traces. Are quantum chips created in a similar manner (using different materials), but operate at extreme cold temperatures, for example? Or is it done using a liquid or gas structure with lasers? So far I've only seen the high-level logical descriptions, but nothing about the physical side.

Forgive me for butting into stuff i do not understand,but you guys are quoting Scott Aaranson the same way most people quote holy books.He could be wrong,you know.

So, the article suggests it might be instead some kind of <i>analog</i> computer, right?

Are there any schematics anywhere for how quantum forces could be used to add together two integers represented in binary?<p>Does D-Wave have any top secret schematics or diagrams we could look over?