Regarding this picture, where do you think quantum computers lie and why?
Personally I find quantum computers really impressive, and they havent been given its righteous hype.
I know they won't be something everyone has in their house but it will greatly improve some services.
I dunno if anyone except scientists and security people think about quantum computing at the moment.
Correct me if I'm wrong.
I'd say it's still at the beginning of the curve. At the technology trigger phase. I don't hear about it as much as I would expect
Yeah as we have seen with LLMs, unless there is practical use for the average person, nobody cares.
Pretty sure QC is down at 0,0 right now. They haven't gotten it to work in the way it's been envisioned yet. The theory is there, but until something is quantifiably working, there's basically no hype behind it.
I'd say very slightly past that. Quantum computers do work right now, but it's the same way the Wright brothers' first plane worked: as proof of concept and research, but not better than existing tech for solving any problems.
And it's not that they fail to meet expectations of the designers, as far as I know they do exactly what they are built to do as well as predicted with the tech we have. Just the press is expecting more.
They work, but it's expensive and POC stage. They're mostly just not scaled to the level that we think we can take them to.
I personally think we’re on the slope of enlightenment - quantum computing no longer attracts as much hype as it used to, but in the background, there’s a lot of interesting developments that genuinely might be very important.
I'd agree, but that slope will be a long and hard one. And the hype cycle may have many more peaks and troughs of disillusionment, from new breakthroughs, but the researchers will still make steady progress.
If true then when did QC have its "ChatGPT" moment?
Quantum computers have no place in typical consumer technology, its practical applications are super high level STEM research and cryptography. Beyond being cool to conceptualize why would there be hype around quantum computers from the perspective of most average people who can barely figure out how to post on social media or send an email?
...and cryptography.
I think I'm a typical consumer, and if I'm not mistaken we use cryptography constantly (https and banking, off the top of my head). If quantum computers are important for cryptography, it's hard to imagine "regular people" having no use.
Imagine quantum PCs get usable and we don’t update users cryptography 😂 you could as well communicate in plain text in that case
Specifically breaking prime number based cryptography.
The answer for that exists as a superposition of multiple possibilities but as soon as somebody manages to read it it will decohere into just the one.
Quantum Computing is still climbing the slope from TT to the Peak of Inflated Expectations. There is still little to no major hype, as its still in "R&D/testing" it is slow, it is expensive (Very) limited due to all the surrounding tech required to make it work like cooling, containment etc..
Compare this to AI.
AI is at and heading down from the Peak towards the Trough of Disillusionment. It was easy (relatively) to implement, easy to evolve as how nVidia did, simply throw more silicon at it. The Hype was easy to generate because even while totally misinformed, media and other people out there thought they could easily sell it. Even though most of what they claimed was turd, it sounded amazing and a game changer even in the early stages, and businesses lapped it up. Now they are feeling the pain, and seeing that there are still major hurdles to get past.
considering that no one who isn't involved in the creation of them is talking about quantum computing in regards to quarterly profits or posting about it on LinkedIn trying to score a lead, it may be as far left on the chart as possible.
AI is way different. It’s more like a series of hills where Sysiphus is pushing the boulder up to the peak, only to see another higher peak as the boulder rolls down the slope of disillusionment.
The thing is that quite a few things initially called AI have climbed that hype curve, rolled down into disillusionment, and quite a few have climbed back to a plateau of increased productivity. Each time we realize that’s either not AI or only a step toward AI. We’ve gotten a lot of useful functionality but the actual progress seems to be mainly clarifying what intelligence is or is not
The kind of LLM that caused this hype with GPT3 is in R&D since the 60's. I belive we're in the 70's of Quantum Coputing. When It'll be measured, it'd be just as easy and relatively cheep to produce and advance as AI today
QC is likely to remain the domain of liquid nitrogen-cooled machines for a long time to come, possibly forever. I can run a basic LLM on a Raspberry Pi--and I have--but it's highly unlikely QC will ever be that easy.
Pretty much on the blue line. They cost a lot of money for being barely functional, and it’s not clear whether they’ll ever be anything more
Amazing computational speedups if you regularly use any of these incredibly specific algorithms. Otherwise useless.
Quantum as a service may exist as a business.
Uh... one of those algorithms in your list is literally for speeding up linear algebra. Do you think just because it sounds technical it's "businessy"? All modern technology is technical, that's what technology is. It would be like someone saying, "GPUs would be useless to regular people because all they mainly do is speed up matrix multiplication. Who cares about that except for businesses?" Many of these algorithms here offer potential speedup for linear algebra operations. That is the basis of both graphics and AI. One of those algorithms is even for machine learning in that list. There are various algorithms for potentially speeding up matrix multiplication in the linear. It's huge for regular consumers... assuming the technology could ever progress to come to regular consumers.
literally for speeding up linear algebra
For a sparse matrix where you don't need the values of the solution vector.
I.e. a very specific use case.
Quantum computers will be called from libraries that apply very specific subroutines for very specific problems.
Consumers may occasionally call a quantum subroutine in a cloud environment. I very much doubt we will have a quantum chip in our phone.
Btw: What a quantum computer can reliably do these days, is tell you 21 is 3 x 7. And it takes hours and quite some traditional computing to do that.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Integerfactorizationrecords#Recordsforeffortsbyquantumcomputers
We've progressed a bit further than that. But for anyone interested in actual applications for quantum computers... They'll have to wait. It's research at this point. We're making progress one step at a time. But so far no one has even demostrated we're able to scale those computers to a useful size.
So I'd say we're somewhere close to the origin of the axes. Or on a different graph for research that's still science fiction. Together with nuclear fusion power plants, thorium cars, space ships and hypothetical battery chemistry that'll make our electric cars go 5000 miles and not degrade over time.
[Edit: The Wikipedia Article: Quantum comuting also has some good references.]
What exactly is holding QC back right now? Does it require near room-temp superconductivity to become viable or is it just in research phase right now?
I remember that AI/ML was held back mainly because of compute power to price ratio.
There are a few different physical systems that people are trying to build quantum computers with. Superconducting loops are one of the most promising ones, because of a halfway decent decoherence rate. And yeah, superconducts needing near 0K temperature to operate is a problem. It's just hard to scale up while everything needs to be so cold. Room-temp superconductivity would be a huge advantage.
But even then, the decoherence rates are still too high for any long quantum computation. Last I heard, the best qubits are maybe barely getting to good enough errors rates that quantum error correction would be possible - which is great, but 'possible' and 'practical' still have a significant gap between them.
So in short, basically everything about the hardware needs to be better; and its just very very hard. Probably too hard to ever achieve the dream of having arbitrary quantum computation. (But there is always the possibility of some big new idea that makes everything work better.)
That's not entirely true. There are companies right now with prototypes solving real world problems.
We're in the "grifters collecting donations" phase for the foreseeable future.
I think this graph doesn't have to move left to right, it can also move right to left. On several occasions quantum computing started to move up the "tech trigger" slope, but without any functional applications for the current technology the point slid back down to the left again.
I think the graph needs at least one more demarcated region. After "tech trigger" there needs to be "real world applications". Without real world applications you can never progress past the tech trigger phase.
In chemistry this is the equivalent of Energy of Activation. If a reaction can't get over the big first step, then it can't proceed on to any secondary steps
Real world applications is what comes to light at the „Slope of Enlightment“ If QC has some, the tech is at this point.
Either somewhere on the far left, and we'll see some actual breakthrough with major impact in the future which actually gets hyped, or on the far right and it already happened, it was just too niche for anyone other than a specific small group to notice.
Quantum computers have already had its hype, so plateau of productivity. It’s just that the plateau is really low.
There is a difference between feasibility hype and adoption hype. The hype about it being possible at all has passed. But the true hype relevant to the graph is when it is implemented in the general economy, outside of labs and research facilities.
Yeah they're similar to fusion. The hype perpetually goes up to the first peak and then back down to the left while they keep working on it
This is the equivalent of saying AI already had its hype because Isaac Asimov was popular.
People are aware of the term quantum computer and basically nothing else. We're a decade pre-hype at least. Only a small handful of specialists are investing in it.
Approaching the point of disillusionment.
They started to work, but hardly anyone cares. They are still far from being good, or affordable.
Trough of disillusionment
You think we've made it that far?
Schrödinger's tech. It's both real and flimflam at the same time.
You've been able to buy a quantum computer for years, so trough of disillusionment.
although DARPA has them, so probably making our way through the trough of disillusionment.
DARPA feasibility studies:
https://www.theregister.com/2024/06/24/darpa_quantum_computer_benchmarking_papers/
available quantum computers:
https://quantumzeitgeist.com/how-to-buy-a-quantum-computer/
You're not going to hear a lot about them the same way people didn't hear about personal computers back in the '60s,, but there are and have been many companies consistently working on improving the accuracy and power of quantum computers.
regular computers were around for decades before being successfully developed into personal machines with commercial utility, quantum computers are kind of in that zone roght mow, big room sized things that have a couple cubits.
but they are real and available, and the field is constantly in development
It's debatable if D-Wave is actually a quantum computer at least in the sense most people use the term. There's a lot of unanswered questions still on exactly how to use and design a quantum computer and we're not likely to get those answers until we can reliably produce and run systems with at least 8 qubits. Maybe DARPA and the military/CIA has such systems, but I don't think anyone else does.
Quantum computers are still mostly theoretical. We have some of the building blocks of one, but there's still a few critical pieces missing. Quantum computers are in about the same place as fusion reactors are. Theoretically possible but not currently producible in a form that's useful without a few more technological breakthroughs.
If the computers are using qubits instead of bits as processing power, then they're a quantum computer, as far as i understand.
I think IBM's most recent chip has a thousand qubits hang on-
IBMs quantum computer has 1121 cubits in their heron chip now in the quantum computer they're producing now and are working toward 100,000 qubits per processor in the next decade.
https://www.forbes.com/sites/technology/article/top-quantum-computing-companies/
I think AI is falling into disillusionment and Quantum Computers feel at least 10 years behind.
AI is falling into disillusionment for like the 10th time now. We just keep redefining what AI is to mean “whatever is slightly out of reach for modern computers”.
Hahaha, I kept saying this to myself while going through this thread. I mean there is a whole wiki page on the concept of AI winters because it's such a common occurrence - https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/AI_winter
I think we're still headed up the peak of inflated expectations. Quantum computing may be better at a category of problems that do a significant amount of math on a small amount of data. Traditional computing is likely to stay better at anything that requires a large amount of input data, or a large amount of output data, or only uses a small amount of math to transform the inputs to the outputs.
Anything you do with SQL, spreadsheets, images, music and video, and basically anything involved in rendering is pretty much untouchable. On the other hand, a limited number of use cases (cryptography, cryptocurrencies, maybe even AI/ML) might be much cheaper and fasrer with a quantum computer. There are possible military applications, so countries with big militaries are spending until they know whether that's a weakness or not. If it turns out they can't do any of the things that looked possible from the expectation peak, the whole industry will fizzle.
As for my opinion, comparing QC to early silicon computers is very misleading, because early computers improved by becoming way smaller. QC is far closer to the minimum possible size already, so there won't be a comparable, "then grow the circuit size by a factor of ten million" step. I think they probably can't do anything world shaking.
As for my opinion, comparing QC to early silicon computers is very misleading, because early computers improved by becoming way smaller. QC is far closer to the minimum possible size already, so there won’t be a comparable
Thanks for saying this. I see a lot of people who assume all technology always gets better all the time. Truth is, things do have limits, and sometimes things hit a dead end and never get better than they are. Those things tend to get stuck in the lab and you never hear about them.
sometimes things hit a dead end and never get better
Ah, that’s when it’s time to start charging a monthly subscription fee of course!
All points on that curve, at the same time just now, for undefined values of now.
Inflated Expectations. Most people who are aware of them will still talk about how they're going to destroy crypto. We are very, very far off from the size of QC that could possibly do that. It may not even be feasible to do the quantum juggling act necessary to handle that many qbits. It primarily effects public key crypto, with relatively minor effects on block ciphers and hashes. Plus, we already have post-quantum crypto making its way into TLS and other cryptographic suites.
And don't get me started on the morons who think the NSA already has some super secret breakthrough QC that can already break all crypto. Often from the same sorts of people who (correctly) throw Russell's Teapot at creationists.
Meanwhile, there are far more interesting possibilities that don't need so many qbits. Things like improving logistics or molecular simulation.
One problem with QC is that besting classical computers has been a moving target, improving exponentially for many years while QC was being researched. It's going to be a long, slow climb up the slope of enlightenment as it reveals its potential.
Well, yes and no.
Quantum computers will likely never beat classical computing on classical algorithms, for exactly the reasons you stated, classical just has too much of a head start.
But there are certain problems with quantum algorithms that are exponentially faster than the classical algorithms. Quantum computers will be better on those problems very quickly, but we are still working on building reliable QCs. Also, we currently don't know very many quantum algorithms with that degree of speedup, so as others have said there isn't many use cases for QCs yet.
Kind of like cpus and gpus perform radically different depending on what's fed into it.
Somewhere around 0,0 or 1,1
There are amazing possibilities in the theoretical space, but there hasn't been enough of a breakthrough on how to practically make stable qubits on a scale to create widespread hype
I know they won't be something everyone has in their house
That's what they said about non-quantum computers 80 years ago.
There are some things which might never be feasible no matter how much human ingenuity you throw at it, because the physics says so. FTL travel, for example.
Domt fkrget about quantum tunneling past the activation barrier
Quantum computers don’t lie: it’s not like thawed can run generative ai