Friday, November 10, 2017

Hearings on quantum computing

I mentioned Congress hearings on quantum computing, and now I have watched it. Scientists testified about the great quantum hype. They kept returning to the themes of how important quantum information science is, how we better push ahead or China will catch up, how big breakthroughs are right around the corner, and how any budget cuts would be devastating.

One congressman asked (paraphrasing):
Is quantum computer another one of those technologies that always seems to be 15 years into the future?
The scientist said that he might have admitted that to be a possibility a couple of years ago, but we now have imminent success, and there is no reason to doubt it.

The scientists are misleading our lawmakers.

Somebody should have said that:

Quantum supremacy may be physically impossible, like perpetual motion machines.

Even if possible, it might be impractical with today's technology, like fusion reactors.

Even if achieved, the biggest likely outcome will be the destruction of internet security.

Quantum cryptography and teleportation have no useful applications. A true quantum computer might, but the matter is speculative.

Update: TechCrunch announces:
IBM has been offering quantum computing as a cloud service since last year when it came out with a 5 qubit version of the advanced computers. Today, the company announced that it’s releasing 20-qubit quantum computers, quite a leap in just 18 months. A qubit is a single unit of quantum information.

The company also announced that IBM researchers had successfully built a 50 qubit prototype, which is the next milestone for quantum computing, but it’s unclear when we will see this commercially available. ...

Quantum computing is a difficult area of technology to understand.
50 qubits is generally considered to be enuf to demonstrate quantum supremacy. If so, where's the beef?

Google says that it will have 49 qubits this year. My guess is that it is only promising 49 bits because it is not expecting to get quantum supremacy.

If these companies are on the level, then we should see some scientific papers in the next several weeks demonstrating quantum supremacy or something close to it. They will claim to get the holy grail next year.

I don't believe it. It won't happen.

Oh, they might publish papers saying that they are close. There are papers on perpetual motion machines that say something like: "We have achieved efficiency of 95%, and as soon as we get the efficiency over 100%, we will have free energy." But of course they never get up to 100%.

Do not believe the hype until they can show quantum supremacy. IBM and Google need to put up, or shut up.


  1. The government needs to get out the business of supporting rent seeking technologies. This is basically cronyism justified in the name of 'what if?'

  2. It is not what IBM said that matters, it is what they didn't say.