19 replies to this topic

[Mind]

The Immortality Institute will welcome Dr. Geordie Rose of D-Wave Systems this Sunday January 27th. Time has yet to be decided. Dr. Rose is famous for founding D-Wave systems and producing the world's first commercial quantum computer, although many in the physics community are still skeptical. In a press release last year, D-Wave systems said it would have a 1,024 bit quantum computer functioning by the end this year. In this Sunday's exclusive Immortality Institute chat, find out if D-Wave is still on pace to deliver. Also, find out how quantum computing might assist with aging research.

Since guests have had trouble logging into the IRC chat room recently, I would prefer to use Skype text chat for this Sunday night's chat. In order to accomplish this I will need to know everyone's Skype name (who plans on attending) in order to add you to the conference text chat when it begins. You can list you skype name in this thread, or send me a PM. I will add you to my contacts list.

The Imminst chat room will only be used as a back-up http://www.imminst.org/chat

I am still looking around for a live audio streaming option or other free (very low cost) conference calling VOIP platform please see here to make suggestions.

 

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[treonsverdery]

This is tremendous
Much appreciated

I've been thinking about a heart disease cure as this would benefit more than 4 billion people
Now that all the technological pieces are aligned to cure much of heart disease there is an opportunity to think on quantum computing

Much of heart disease will be responsive to this upregulate the cyp3a4 liver enzymes that scrub all steroids as well as cholesterol from the blood; measure the effect on atherosclerosis as well as cardiac related death, use a genetically engineered common food to immunize as much of the earths population that is willing like the paper Rice-based mucosal vaccine as a global strategy for cold-chain- and needle-free vaccination http://www.ncbi.nlm....Pubmed_RVDocSum

immunological atherosclerosis vaccine approaches are being tested on humans now

Edited by treonsverdery, 24 January 2008 - 05:03 AM.

[Mind]

I just got off the phone with Dr. Rose and the time for the Sunday evening chat has been set at 5:00pm CST (23:00 GMT). This will be a Skype chat (for reasons listed above). I have a lot of regular chat attendees in my Skype contact list, however if you would like to be added to the chat, you will need to let me know your Skype name.

An exclusive tidbit for Imminst members: Dr. Rose has confirmed another round of VC funding for D-Wave systems worth 20 million. Someone with money obviously believes that D-Wave is doing real quantum computing in their machines. Head over to the chat on Sunday at 5pm to find out more.

[kanzure]

Will Dr. Rose be able to provide us with some reading material from the arXiv for those of us not up to date on our quantum computer architecture? No reason to go into the chat blind.

- Bryan

[Mind]

Even though I am just a layman on the quantum mechanics/quantum computing scene, it does strike me as a game changing technology. My feeling is that if D-wave succeeds in producing a 1024 qbit computer by the end of this year, it is going to shake a lot of people out of their slumber. Well, at least people "in the know". I was rather dismayed last year when the D-Wave demonstration drew yawns from over 99% of the world.

My feeling is that end users will generate a multitude of new uses for quantum computing that the inventors do not anticipate. Similar to how hardly anyone anticipated all the uses for binary/classical computers.

[jerpoint]

Even though I am just a layman on the quantum mechanics/quantum computing scene, it does strike me as a game changing technology. My feeling is that if D-wave succeeds in producing a 1024 qbit computer by the end of this year, it is going to shake a lot of people out of their slumber. Well, at least people "in the know". I was rather dismayed last year when the D-Wave demonstration drew yawns from over 99% of the world.

My feeling is that end users will generate a multitude of new uses for quantum computing that the inventors do not anticipate. Similar to how hardly anyone anticipated all the uses for binary/classical computers.

I can't say that I was surprised by the response. When I have asked physicists about the prospects of a practical quantum computer in the past, I general get a strange mix of interest and cynicism. Most people are fascinated by the idea but see it as a messy problem to solve.

I can understand the general apathy that I have seen among engineers. The successful demonstration of a new technology is only the first step in a long and risky process for commercialization. Even if the technology provides unique capability, economics can still stop it from becoming a reality.

[Mind]

I can understand the general apathy that I have seen among engineers. The successful demonstration of a new technology is only the first step in a long and risky process for commercialization. Even if the technology provides unique capability, economics can still stop it from becoming a reality.

Good point about commercial viability. Since a "true" functional quantum computer would most likely render RSA encryption irrelevant (according to expert opinion I have read), you would think there would be an immediate, widespread, high profit market for some sort of new security protocol based on quantum computing, encryption, and data transmission. Just my speculation, I am just a layman on the subject.

I have received a few Skype names to add to the chat tonight. It is getting closer so list your Skype name here or send me a PM if you want to join. 5pm tonight.

[Mind]

I will start adding people to the conference text chat in about 5 to 10 minutes.

[Mind]

Will be starting the chat in 5 minutes

Make sure you have your skype on.

[Mind]

[5:01:09 PM] Mind says: A very warm welcom to our esteemed geust Dr. Geordie Rose of D-Wave Systems

[5:01:18 PM] Geordie Rose says: Thanks for having me.

[5:01:28 PM] Mind says: First of all I realize there may be some proprietary information that you cannot discuss in this chat, so if a question comes up that you are not at liberty to discuss, please just say so and everyone will understand.

[5:01:38 PM] Geordie Rose says: OK.

[5:01:50 PM] Mind says: Secondly I want congratulate D-Wave on its successful demonstration in 2007 and hope for similar success in 2008.

[5:02:01 PM] Geordie Rose says: Thanks!

[5:02:04 PM] Mind says: Before I get into the questions I want to again confirm that D-Wave has succesfully garnered another round of funding.

[5:02:13 PM] Geordie Rose says: Yes, we just closed another $17M as of last Friday.

[5:02:26 PM] Mind says: Also, near the end of 2007, D-wave issued a press release claiming to be on pace to demostrate a 512 qbit computer by the 2nd quarter of 2008, and a 1024 qbit computer by the 4th quarter of 2008. Are you still on that trajectory?

[5:02:34 PM] Geordie Rose says: Yes, there are still issues with transitioning to a fully scalable architecture but we’re confident we can pull it off.

[5:03:11 PM] Mind says: Many skeptics said they will reserve judgement until they see a functional 1024 qbit computer. Do you think they will come around once a 512 qbit computer is released, or hold off until 1024

[5:04:33 PM] Geordie Rose says: Once the system is sufficiently large (about 100-200 qubits) there are "smoking gun" tests that the processor is a quantum computer. So even before 500 qubits the issue will be settled.

[5:05:32 PM] Mind says: So the "smoking gun" will arrive before you have a working 512 qbit computer?

[5:07:25 PM] Geordie Rose says: We're planning to go directly to 500+ qubits once the architecture becomes fully scalable. There's no good reason to aim lower, but there is a good reason to set this as the objective (having to do with testing new I/O systems).

[5:07:49 PM] Mind says: What about commercial prospects. I realize the main thing being talked about is a quantum computer's ability break current encryption with ease. What else do you foresee?

[5:08:04 PM] Geordie Rose says: The system is architected as an accelerator for a type of problem called quadratic binary optimization problems (QUBOs). Many important problems can be mapped to QUBOs. My main areas of interest are life sciences (bioinformatics) and synthetic intelligence (pattern matching, machine learning).

[5:08:22 PM] Geordie Rose says: as for factoring, it's an interesting and important application. We'll be thinking about it.

[5:10:05 PM] Mind says: Imminst members are particularly interested in the life sciences aspect? When you talk about bioinformatics can you give a concrete example of something that is being done with classical computers that will be much better suited to a quantum machine.
[5:10:19 PM] Mind says: Whole body simulation?
[5:10:28 PM] Mind says: Database searching?

[5:13:16 PM] Geordie Rose says: It principle anything that involves discrete variables (like amino acids or elements of a systems biology network) and something combinatorial, like searching to find some optimum. Examples include protein folding, multiple sequence alignment, creation of philogenetic trees, lots more. Whole body (or just the brain) simulation is very interesting to me. For example neural nets are closely related to our hardware. Also extraction of complex relational information from databases is also something we're working on. Related to memory in neural nets.

[5:13:55 PM] Mind says: I see you also mentioned synthetic intelligence. Do you think quantum computation is a necessary component for AGI?
[5:14:11 PM] Mind says: I know Ben Goertzel thinks we can get there fairly soon with classical computation.

[5:14:50 PM] Geordie Rose says: The short answer is no, I don't think QC is required. However I do think that QCs can do the computations that underlie AGI more efficiently than classical methods.

[5:15:18 PM] Mind says: Ok, at this point I would like to solicit questions from the audience
[5:15:30 PM] Mind says: feel free to jump in with anything new
[5:15:43 PM] Mind says: or any follow-ups to what has been said so far.

[5:15:49 PM] Paul Carver Tiffany III says: how scalable do you expect to be past 1024 qbits? Are you intending to sell to a larger company (IBM)? If not, do you plan on renting out qbits forever, or do you see yourself selling hardware eventually?

[5:17:42 PM] Bryan Bishop says: Are there any public "quantum" APIs for programmers interested in getting a head start in thinking like a quantum programmer?

[5:17:47 PM] Geordie Rose says: I can see the current approach scaling to about a million qubits. The reason we can't go to the levels of integration of cmos/mram is that the qubits have to be fairly large in our approach. We are building the company to be around for a long time, we have no plans to sell to anybody. We do plan to place hardware remotely--how this will work from the business side might not involve sales.

[5:18:21 PM] Geordie Rose says: kansuze--yes, we do have APIs and they are available now for C, java and matlab.

[5:18:36 PM] Bryan Bishop says: You will remotely host the quantum computers? How would we know that they are then truly quantum? Walk-throughs of the facilities?

[5:18:46 PM] James Clement says: Can you put 1024 qbit processing in perspective for those of us who might not readily be able to visualize the difference? For example protein folding on a fast computer, versus the 1024 qbit?

[5:19:58 PM] Geordie Rose says: Kanzure--yes the facilities can be inspected. Also over time benchmarks and such will be published and it will become less shocking that QCs exist. I think it's shocking that they don't yet.

[5:21:08 PM] cnorwood says: Dr. Rose. If someone wanted to research Quantum Information Theory, what college path should they take? Physics, Computer Science, Math?

[5:21:32 PM] Geordie Rose says: James--it isn't always easy to make a straightforward statement about capability as a fucntion of qubits. Depends on a lot of things, the most important of which is the skill of the programmer. 1024 qubits can in principle hold 2^1024 simultaneous states but there are some real tough issues in using this sort of power, and sometimes you can prove you can't!

[5:22:37 PM] Geordie Rose says: cnorwood--any of those would work. I did engineering physics and then physics in grad school. I personally think physics is the best because ultimately the machines have to be made out of stuff and this fact can be abstracted away if you think too much like a mathematician!

[5:23:06 PM] cnorwood says: thanks!

[5:23:22 PM] calyban8 says: how do you keep them cold?

[5:23:35 PM] Bryan Bishop says: vacuum?

[5:23:51 PM] Geordie Rose says: dilution refridgerators. 5 millikelvin. about 500 times colder than interstellar space.
[5:24:28 PM] Mind says: You mentioned some scaling difficulties. Are these just basic engineering problems? Or is it something with the theory of the design?

[5:28:03 PM] Geordie Rose says: There are both engineering issues (although the semiconductor industry has solved most of these already) and basic physics issues (mostly related to noise).

[5:28:20 PM] Mind says: Are you aware of any other quantum computers around the world that are ready for commercialization (or at least near), whether in private industry or through government efforts?

[5:29:00 PM] Geordie Rose says: Unfortunately no-one but us is really trying, at least in the public domain. So no.

[5:29:38 PM] Bryan Bishop says: Are you going to be making a quantum computing cluster ?

[5:30:26 PM] Geordie Rose says: bryan--we already have one! The way our lab is set up all the machines are accessible through the same interface and can be run as parallel processors.

[5:31:01 PM] Mind says: A brilliant physicist friend of mine remarked that proving it works is only the first step to widespread utilization. Profitibility is sometimes a hurdle. Are you fairly certain that the applications of D-Wave quantum computers will be obvious commercial successes right out of the gate?

[5:32:19 PM] Geordie Rose says: It really depends on how quickly the hardware can be scaled. I think the answer is most definitely YES with a million qubits. So I am pushing to get to something at that scale as quickly as we can.

[5:32:36 PM] Mind says: OK, we have reached past the 30 minute mark and Dr. Rose has a flight to catch so last call for one more question.
[5:33:15 PM] Mind says: Anything else you would like to mention Geordie?

[5:33:52 PM] Geordie Rose says: Just that I appreciate the opportunity. I have been thinking about "uploading" for a while now... maybe I'll do that after we solve the QC problem
[5:34:35 PM] Mind says: One more question from James

[5:35:25 PM] James Clement says: Thanks Dr. Rose. I'd invite you to check out www.innerspacefoundation.org regarding a neuroengineering approach to uploading and other issues.

[5:35:52 PM] Geordie Rose says: Cool thanks for the link. I'll check it out. Thanks everybody, fight the good fight.

[5:36:07 PM] Mind says: A very big thanks to Dr. Rose for sharing the latest in the quantum computing scene.
[5:36:15 PM] Mind says: It was very enlightening
[5:36:27 PM] Mind says: I wish you and D-Wave much success in the coming year

[Mind]

Another very informative Imminst chat with a researcher at the leading edge of science. Thanks to all who attended and asked questions.

[treonsverdery]

transcript appreciated

Edited by treonsverdery, 28 January 2008 - 03:21 AM.

[forever freedom]

Very nice chat. I don't know much about quantum computers, but i was able to get a better grasp of it now.

[Mind]

Some recent news with D-wave.

Apparently they do not know for sure if their computer is doing quantum calculations. They went to MIT for help in evaluating their computer.

[forever freedom]

Some recent news with D-wave.

Apparently they do not know for sure if their computer is doing quantum calculations. They went to MIT for help in evaluating their computer.

lol... in other words not even they know very well what they're doing.

[Mind]

It illustrates how weird and counterintuitive the quantum world is. It is not easy task to extract solid data.

[jerpoint]

This may be a case where engineers have let the fascination with the science blind them to the big pictures.

They may not be able to prove that their computer is performing true adiabatic quantum computation, but it may not be necessary to do so. The only question they need to ask should be relatively easy to answer: Does their technology offer computing capability at a competitive cost?

If they have a competitive advantage, the idea that their system doesn’t use true quantum computing is a superficial concern.

[Mind]

https://phys.org/new...opological.html

 

D-Wave keeps advancing with quantum annealing.

 

 

[Mind]

Here is an interesting video from Dr. Rose from 2013: https://www.youtube....h?v=PqN_2jDVbOU

 

The interesting thing (among many) is the end where he makes predictions. He predicted that earth-like exosolar planets would be discovered by 2018. Spot on. Maybe another Kurzweil in the making.

[Mind]

It has been over 15 years! Here is a new interview with Dr. Rose. Find out what he thinks about AI, robotics, and quantum computing.