D-Wave продает квантовый компьютер Налаштування

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D-Wave Announces Commercially Available Quantum Computer

Computing company D-Wave has announced that they’re selling a quantum computing system commerically, which they’re calling the D-Wave One. The D-Wave system comes equipped with a 128-qubit processor that’s designed to perform discrete optimization operations. A qubit is the basic unit of quantum information – analogous to a bit in conventional computing. For a broader understanding of how qubits work, check out Ars Technica‘s excellent guide.

The processor uses quantum annealing to perform these operations. Quantum annealing is a mathematical operation where the extreme points of a function (the maxima and minma of a graph, for example) are determined from a given set of discrete candidate solutions. This is accomplished using a process similar to that of quantum fluctuations – a phenomonon that’s predicted by the Heisenberg Uncertainty Principle.

(For a more technical explanation of how the quantum annealing is applied to the D-Wave One’s processor to solve optimization problems, you can see this paper in Nature.)

D-Wave is advertisting a number of different applications for its quantum computing system, primarily in the field of artificial intelligence. According to the company, its system can handle virtually any AI application that can be translated to a Markov random field — a special type of statistical model used for applications such as vision problems for computers or determining biological pathways. They are also touting the processor as a solution for use in solving hard problems involving complex systems as well as number theory problems.