back to article UK prof claims to have first practical blueprint of a quantum computer

A professor at the University of Sussex says he has the first practical blueprint for a quantum computer capable of solving problems that could take billions of years for a classical computer to compute. Oh yeah? A quantum computer (QC) uses qubits instead of classic binary digits, and each qubit is in a quantum state between …

  1. J P

    *Checks calendar*

    No, it's not April yet, so I need to reread it slowly and see if I can understand any of the words, instead of trying to make silly ones out of the acronyms.

    (Although the bit a bout QCs and low energy states may cause a wry smile in any lawyers who've tried contacting a silk on a Friday afternoon)

    1. werdsmith Silver badge

      Re: *Checks calendar*

      Clearly what is being described in the article is a Raspberry Pi 4.

      1. Simon Harris

        Re: *Checks calendar*

        With processors in steel framed 4.5 m x 4.5 m units, I think they're basing it on James Newman's Megaprocessor.

        https://www.theregister.co.uk/2016/11/28/megaprocessor_hand_built_cpu_centre_computing_history/

  2. Axman

    whoooooosh

    Wh000000sh...maybe, (n)one day, I'll understand what quantum computing is about.

    I wh111111sh.

    1. Anonymous Coward
      Anonymous Coward

      Re: whoooooosh

      If quantum physics is so hard not even quantum physicists understand it, what does that say about quantum computing?

      1. Oh Homer
        Paris Hilton

        Quantum Physics is not hard to understand

        I watched it twice on Netflix, and it's basically just about James Bond getting revenge.

        Pfft.

      2. Anonymous Coward
        Anonymous Coward

        Re: whoooooosh

        "If quantum physics is so hard not even quantum physicists understand it"

        That is a false assumption. Scientists who are working on building real Quantum Computers do understand it very very well. The problem is building a Quantum Computer; the q-bits are just pairs of spinning particles and they must spin with Einstein's Spooky Action At A Distance, or what the boffins call Quantum Entanglement. But actually constructing one is immensely difficult, and the time window to do your Quantum Calculations is very very small. Unlike classic computers where you can just idle until you are ready to do something, in a QC you have to do a ton of setup to prepare for the calculation run time. And, at the currently state of the art, your entanglement decays and you much complete your work before that occurs (or perhaps move it to another q-bit?). It's very new stuff, so not everything is known, and we're years away from having a "home Quantum Computer."

        Just read some of the articles on Wikipedia, the folks there do a fair job at explaining these concepts to the layman. I have a pretty high knowledge of science, but I am not classically or institutionally trained, yet I can grasp what the folks are doing when they talk about the q-bit and other terms specific to this new technology. If you can manage the understanding of classic Harvard or von Neumann (aka Princeton) architecture, you can understand Quantum Computing. The q-bits are just magical in nature and some new breakthroughs will vastly alter how we compute in the future. Check it out!

        1. Anonymous Coward
          Anonymous Coward

          Re: whoooooosh

          "That is a false assumption."

          Seriously, dude - were you born without a sense of humour or was it surgically removed?

          1. eldakka
            Coat

            Re: whoooooosh

            "Seriously, dude - were you born without a sense of humour or was it surgically removed?"

            If by surgery you mean the repeated application of a cricket-bat, then I'm guessing yes.

    2. Lee D Silver badge

      Re: whoooooosh

      This is totally wrong, but you'll get the idea:

      Design electronic layout such that it performs the calculation you want.

      Set it up so that it "gives" you the answer you're after.

      Plug in the answer.

      Watch as it instantaneously determines the only possible inputs would generate that answer.

      It's not quite how it works, but that's the basic gist. Very different to conventional computing, and a lot harder to design, and especially to make it general purpose.

      1. Anonymous Coward
        Anonymous Coward

        Re: whoooooosh

        "This is totally wrong, but you'll get the idea:"

        Nope, completely wrong - it must be black magic, as it involves the ritual sacrifice of cats...

      2. Triggerfish

        Re: whoooooosh

        That sounds a lot like the software from Dirk Gently.

      3. ma1010

        Re: whoooooosh

        Arrrgh, I posted this then saw someone beat me to the main point! So I can only say that I agree that this sounds like the spreadsheet in the first Dirk Gently book: you give it the budget you WANT, and it comes up with justifications for it.

        So maybe that's what these boffins are up to?

  3. Alan Bourke

    Where's Captain Cyborg?

    I miss Captain Cyborg.

    1. Haku

      Re: Where's Captain Cyborg?

      Maybe he had a failed firmware upgrade and is waiting for someone to reboot him.

  4. Stevie

    Bah!

    So if I understand correctly, the problem 2+2=x could produce "x = a fish"?

    How spiffy!

    1. Dave 15

      Re: Bah!

      Sounds like my code when I get a pointer wrong....

      But in honesty given our propensity for buggering up software so comprehensively won't this computer still perform slower than my 8086 when windows 12 or linux 15 or whatever is installed? After all this computer has a multicore upteen gigabyte processor, an incredibly fast massive bank of memory and a high speed low latency disk and takes 10 minutes to become even vaguely usable in the morning.

      One thing I can guarantee is that Mr UK prof will get ZERO funding from government or bans while Mr Germany, Mr America etc. will get billions from the UK government to do the development ABROAD.

      1. Magani
        Happy

        Re: Bah!

        ... and takes 10 minutes to become even vaguely usable in the morning.

        I resemble that remark!

    2. Anonymous Coward
      Anonymous Coward

      Re: Bah!

      "2+2=a fish" would be correct for some choice of algebra :)

  5. Anonymous Coward
    Anonymous Coward

    Simultaneously is and isn't bollocks

    Surely we won't know that until we observe it?

    1. Tom 7

      Re: Simultaneously is and isn't bollocks

      And you already know what the answer is so you can check it.

    2. EnviableOne

      Re: Simultaneously is and isn't bollocks

      Ahh! but if you observe it, you won't know how fast its going.

      1. Magani
        Linux

        Re: Simultaneously is and isn't bollocks

        Ahh! but if you observe it, you won't know how fast its going.

        Is that for African or European Bollocks?

  6. Scott Broukell

    So, simultaneously this either is, or isn't, fake news and / or it's fake news that is also simultaneously real news that could be fake news depending on probabilistic fakery that looks really, really real, depending on how you look at it.

    But, then again, if it's real and it works, then we, as a nation (UK), had better get ready to sell the whole shebang to some Asian country or other. So not really news of any tangible benefit to us in the long term anyway. As you were.

    1. John Brown (no body) Silver badge
      Facepalm

      "So, simultaneously this either is, or isn't, fake news and / or it's fake news that is also simultaneously real news that could be fake news depending on probabilistic fakery that looks really, really real, depending on how you look at it."

      It appears it can time travel too. The BBC reported this nearly two week ago"

  7. frank ly

    Nominative Determinism?

    Winfried Hensinger: His name is a superposition of Werner Heisenberg and Erwin Schrödinger. This can't be a coincidence.

    1. Kevin Johnston

      Re: Nominative Determinism?

      It is, and then again, it isn't

      Ah the predictable humour when the cat drags in some more dead/alive quantums

    2. Steve K

      Re: Nominative Determinism?

      Weird - when I looked earlier it said Erner Schröberg ;-)

    3. Anonymous Coward
      Anonymous Coward

      Re: Nominative Determinism?

      There's a well known manufacturer of quantum computing kit called D-Link.

      There's a well known manufacturer of consumer networking kit called D-Wave.

      A quantum hybridisation of the two might lead to D-Live and D-Wa..

      This can't be a coincidence.

  8. Tachikoma
    Pint

    we won't be using them to compose emails just yet

    Shame, an email/text message quantum app would be perfect for when you need to send a message to her indoors while in the pub, you type in drunken drawl and it calculates all the possibilities of what to send in the manner least likely to result in sleeping on the sofa.

  9. WibbleMe

    There goes my encrypted bcrypt password database

  10. cd

    I could not do better at fabricating a quantum computer. But it sounds like a profitable idea to do so.

  11. Dabooka
    WTF?

    You know what would be handy on these kind of articles?

    A link to a basic guide for us folk who haven't a clue.

    I'm not talking Dummies Guide here, I mean REALLY basic!

    1. Destroy All Monsters Silver badge
      Holmes

      Re: You know what would be handy on these kind of articles?

      Number 0: The Talk (Scott Aaronson)

      Number 1: QM since that Laughing Classical Greek Guy (Scott Aaronson)

      Number 2: Quantum Theory From Five Reasonable Axioms (Lucien Hardy)

      Number 3: Quantum Algorithms via Linear Algebra: A Primer MIT Press Book

      Number 4: Quantum Picturalism (sorry, I don't get this yet, maybe ever)

    2. Anonymous Coward
      Anonymous Coward

      Re: You know what would be handy on these kind of articles?

      https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Quantum_computing

  12. Sleep deprived

    Each chamber is 4.5 × 4.5 m2 large

    So that's 20.25 m3 ?

    1. Flakk

      Re: Each chamber is 4.5 × 4.5 m2 large

      So it fills an entire room and requires vacuum chambers for calculations? Are they going to call it QuEeNIAC?

    2. MarkB

      Re: Each chamber is 4.5 × 4.5 m2 large

      Surely if you multiply 2 2-dimensional values together, you get a 4-dimensional one.

      The object will be a 20.25 m4 tesseract...

  13. wolfetone Silver badge
    Coat

    QC?

    More like a Sinclair QL! Pah!

  14. John Smith 19 Gold badge
    Unhappy

    Still looking for that elusive QC paper.

    The one that explains how you can actually f**king program one of these things.

    There "use case" is factorizing a 2048 prime which they say can be done in 110 days (which I think is pretty good given the conventional methods IIRC are still in the centuries at least).

    Physicists. Yes it's clever, but WTF do we code it in? If you can't change the structure of the problem solved using code it's a plugboard program. Or in this case a "change the UHV module path"

    Insofar as QC looks like normal programming it seems (loosely) to approximate "sieve" methods, where you generate all numbers and then apply a sieve function.

    On the upside that would let you make a start of descrambling all the back episodes of Sky Digital people might have archived

    In the QC case you seem to want random numbers or quantum states so you need a source of long wavelength radiation.

    Hmm. Perhaps the radiation from a cooling cup of tea from the nearest drinks machine....

    1. Filippo Silver badge

      Re: Still looking for that elusive QC paper.

      In fairness, the very first attempts at building a "traditional" computer were also quite hard to program.

      1. John Smith 19 Gold badge
        Unhappy

        "In fairness, the very first attempts at building a "traditional" computer were "

        Hence my comment about a "plug board." For the very first of the first generation machines beyond hard wired single task solvers.

        The thing that really makes a computer so handy is not so much its programability, as its re-programability.

        Because what it does is decided by instructions stored inside itself.

        And I'm still not seeing a process like that anywhere in this thing.

  15. Haku
    Thumb Up

    Thumbs up for the use of the word 'bollocks'.

    I believe we need to use this word a lot more, to the point where hopefully it'll enter the venacular of residents of other countries.

    1. Steve K

      Re: Thumbs up for the use of the word 'bollocks'.

      Bollocks to that. That idea is completely arsebucket.....

      1. Haku
        Happy

        Re: Thumbs up for the use of the word 'bollocks'.

        That's the spirit!

        Perhaps the next word we need to er spread the word of is 'numpty' which has the benefit of sliding past most swearword filters on websites and in games.

  16. EnviableOne

    "The X-junction structures, equipped with the zones discussed, occupy an area of 2.5 × 2.5 mm2 and can be fabricated in large numbers on a silicon wafer to form the scalable quantum computer module. A total of 1296 individual X-junctions can be monolithically fabricated onto a 90 × 90–mm2 silicon wafer piece, compatible with standard 150-mm wafer sizes."

    looks like someone wrote the image caption in haste

    its all about relativity pq-qp = h/lambda

  17. Neil Barnes Silver badge

    I'm reminded that the cat has *three* states:

    Dead, Alive, and Bloody Furious.

    But at least those big modules will give it somewhere to sit.

    1. Anonymous Coward
      Anonymous Coward

      Re: I'm reminded that the cat has *three* states:

      Cats are Quantum Creatures.

      If proof is needed, just watch as they miraculously appear from nowhere when you open a tin of tuna.

    2. snaptacular

      Re: I'm reminded that the cat has *three* states:

      more likely, somewhere to shit.

  18. Baldy50

    FFS

    http://www.sciencealert.com/it-s-happening-scientists-unveil-first-ever-blueprint-for-a-mind-bendingly-massive-quantum-computer

    Posted a comment about this 11 days ago!

    1. John Brown (no body) Silver badge

      Re: FFS

      "Posted a comment about this 11 days ago!"

      And the BBC a earlier than that.

    2. Adam 1

      Re: FFS

      Try here.

  19. The Bloke next door

    Just asking..

    ... can it solve The Halting problem? .. what about self applicability?

    I would genuinely like to know ..

    1. Destroy All Monsters Silver badge

      Re: Just asking..

      Not a chance.

      (and I don't know what "self applicability" means)

      In fact, the problems solvable by a Quantum Computer in Polynomial Time (i.e. BQP) does not even cover NP-complete problems.

      The universe continues to suck in a profound way (i.e. there always seems to be nearly a shortcut around hard work, but in the end, Mother Nature says no).

    2. eldakka

      Re: Just asking..

      Of more urgent need of a solution is The Starting problem....

  20. Anonymous Coward
    Anonymous Coward

    in the end

    every answer you will ever need is in your dna ... but it might take a qc to work it out ..

    as we are all pre programed to do so much and yet do so little ..

    we just ar'nt ready yet ..

    1. allthecoolshortnamesweretaken

      Re: in the end

      "every answer you will ever need is in your dna"

      Yes and no (hah!).

      It is there, but the data got corrupted after the Golgafrincham 'B' ark crashed on prehistoric Earth.

  21. Sgt_Oddball
    Joke

    I dunno...

    I'm abit uncertain about all of this...

  22. Bear

    Factoring prime numbers??

    Recalling number theory from many years ago, factoring prime numbers is trivial, no matter how bit the prime is.

    Factor non-prime numbers into primes in a short time - now that is a trick worth knowing.

  23. John Smith 19 Gold badge
    Go

    " factoring prime numbers is trivial, no matter how bit the prime is."

    Because a prime only has itself and 1 as factors.

    "Factor non-prime numbers into primes in a short time - now that is a trick worth knowing."

    Especially if you've got archived digital tapes of all of Sky Digital's output.

    They use a 2048 PKA key.

  24. tesseractic

    Factoring big primes, eh?

    This article must be full of hype. It was written by someone who

    doesn't know the difference between a prime number and a semiprime,

    which is what they really want to factor.

    I dunno, maybe the academic is on to something, but I can't tell from

    a reading el Reg's coverage.

  25. imanidiot Silver badge

    *where did it go?

    The * comment about annealing doesn't seem to be actually mentioned/used anywhere in the article. (Or I need another coffee)

    Also, 4 vacuum vessels of 4,5m^2 each? Building that is NOT trivial. I doubt there are more than 4 companies worldwide that could construct UHV vessels of that size.

    1. DropBear
      Trollface

      Re: *where did it go?

      Oh, making even much larger ones is quite trivial - unfortunately they're all in orbit. Oh, wait, you wanted it to have walls too...?

      1. imanidiot Silver badge

        Re: *where did it go?

        You'd be surprised how hard it is to get to Ultra High Vacuum (pressure below 100 nanopascals), even in space. If the space is more or less enclosed, outgassing becomes a very important factor in how deep you can get your vacuum. And that means close control over what materials, construction techniques, assembly processes and possible contaminants get used/introduced.

  26. Torben Mogensen

    Primes

    "the machines will be able to do things like factor very large prime numbers"

    That is not very difficult. A prime number factorises to itself, no matter how large it is.

    What is meant is that it can (in theory) factor products of very large primes.

    Also, the D-wave is not a universal quantum computer, but specialised to do simulated annealing. There probably was a remark about that in an earlier version of the article, since there is an orphaned footnote explaining annealing. The D-wave is similar to analogue computers that can also solve some optimisation problems very quickly, and there is debate about whether D-wave actually uses quantum effects at all or if it is just a fancy analogue computer.

  27. Colabroad

    This is a start...

    How long until we get an Infinite Improbability Drive though?

    1. imanidiot Silver badge

      Re: This is a start...

      Mehh, I'll wait for Bistromathics.

  28. Ugotta B. Kiddingme

    :):

    This makes me happy and not happy

  29. Cynic_999

    So if I built a box that produced a random output no matter what was input, it would be indistinguishable from a quantum computer? Or must it also show a different result to everyone who is observing it?

    1. Anonymous Coward
      Anonymous Coward

      unbeliever

      "So if I built a box that produced a random output no matter what was input, it would be indistinguishable from a quantum computer? "

      Be quiet at the back. Don't you realise there are gullible three letter agencies with huge budgets in this picture, feeding disguised taxpayers' money through a network of vulture capitalists. And IPOs at stake.

      Or maybe not.

      We can't ever be sure, else the whole picture would collapse to nothing.

  30. Jonathan Richards 1

    Bloody idiots...

    You don't want to set the first working quantum computer (Solves billion-year problems in days! Sale must end soon!) onto factoring big semi-primes. You want to set it on designing the second working quantum computer. Assuming, of course, that it won't quickly deduce the existence of rice pudding and income tax, take the next step of working out that its real problem is not making itself redundant, and then proceed to sit in a corner, pondering the life prospects of some German cat.

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