Canadian manufacturer D-Wave Systems Inc., announced today their self proclaimed, “world’s first commercially viable quantum computer.” The rollout event took place at the Computer History Museum in Mountain View, California and was hailed as a big step toward the age of quantum computing.
The system is only designed to solve Sudoku puzzles and experts say the announcement may be a bit premature. Assuming the machine works perfectly in its current form, it is still at least 1,000 times too small to solve problems that current machines cannot. This is also assuming it can be scaled up that high, which has not been tested at all.
“There are still a lot of ifs and maybes here,” says quantum computing researcher Seth Lloyd of the Massachusetts Institute of Technology. But he credits D-Wave for its willingness to test the idea. “From the scientific perspective,” he says, “what they’re doing is very interesting.”
A working quantum computer is the dream of every techno savvy person in the world, even if they don’t realize it yet. While current systems remain restricted to linear calculations (ie. if this, then do this, followed by that), a quantum system has the capability of being in many states simultaneously, which allows for much more complex calculations.
In theory, a quantum computer would be able to solve problems in a fraction of the time it requires today’s systems, and would make even the most complex of encryption algorithm obsolete. A hackers dream. While we can’t pick one up just yet, quantum computing technology seems to be improving by leaps and bounds and is no longer just a pipe dream. I can’t wait to see what the future holds.
