[ExI] 10 Breakthrough Technologies 2017

[John Clark]

On Wed, Feb 22, 2017 at 2:33 PM, BillK <pharos at gmail.com> wrote:

​>​
> Well, nobody has built a proper quantum computer yet, (not counting
> D-Wave), so we don't know yet.
> ​
> Current estimate is 4 to 5 years.
>

A D-wave type machine might be able to solve some problems and do so
quantum mechanically but it wouldn't be Turing complete and be able to work
on any problem as a general purpose computer can. Google and IBM have set
there sights higher and are working on a true Turing complete Quantum
Computer that would use
​s​
uperconducting loops. Microsoft is working on the most advanced and
riskiest design of all, a Topological Quantum Computer; it would use 2
dimensional
​
quasi
​​
particles called non-abelian anyons.

​
The huge advantage non-abelian anyons
​
ha
​ve​
is that they would be vastly less
​s​
susceptible to
​​
quantum decoherence
​
than anything else, so much so that a
​
Topological Quantum Computer might be able to work at room temperature.
​Not only do you need to cool ​a
superconducting loop
​ but because of ​
​​
quantum decoherence
​ it only produces the correct results about 99.9% of the time. A large
quantum computer would need a about ten nines so Google and IBM's machine
would need massive amounts of expensive quantum error correcting circuitry.
Microsoft's N
on-abelian anyons
​would give you about seven nines of precision right at the start so much
less
correcting circuitry
​ would be needed​
​.​

​T​
he only disadvantage is that physicists are only 95% certain that
non-abelian anyons
​ exist.

 John K Clark






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