[ExI] A Working Quantum Computer by 2017?

[John Clark]

On Sat, Sep 3, 2016 at 4:16 PM, Anders <anders at aleph.se> wrote:

> ​> ​
> Yup, progress is faster than expected. Still, I had a senior computer
> scientist tell me to my face *this week* that he doubted there will ever be
> a quantum computer that is usable for anything.
>

​
Maybe, but not every computer scientist would agree. The people at
Microsoft's
​ ​
Quantum Architectures and Computation
​ ​
Group
​ ​think
 a 100 Qubit quantum computer could
​ ​
simulate nitrogen fixation, something of enormous industrial and
agricultural importance. Some bacteria can fix nitrogen and we learned how
to do it too about 100 years ago with the Haber process, but the bacteria
can do it with vastly less energy than we can and nobody has a clear
understanding of how they manage to do it. Quantum computers could help.

https://arxiv.org/abs/1605.03590

​I don't think Google and Microsoft would be spending millions of dollars
on it if they thought quantum computers would never have a practical
application.​ If they end up being able to do nothing but factor large
numbers that alone would be enough to make them be of great interest to the
NSA, but I have a hunch they can do much more.

John K Clark
-------------- next part --------------
An HTML attachment was scrubbed...
URL: <http://lists.extropy.org/pipermail/extropy-chat/attachments/20160904/95ed5981/attachment.html>