Do we have Quantum computers already or are they still in the pipeline?

[Maximum77]

All of the science forums I'm on say that quantum computers aren't futuristic technology, that we already have them. It's driving me crazy (among other things) because I thought that Google was striving this year to finally make one, but people say "no, we have them, they just aren't commercial yet." So what does this article mean? (I didn't read the whole article, but I take it that they are still attempting to make a big one)

http://www.innovationtoronto.com/2017/12/an-important-step-towards-the-goal-of-building-a-large-scale-quantum-computer/

[factotum]

The critical part you're missing is in the title of the article: "Large-scale". We can produce the quantum equivalent of logic gates, AFAIK, but we haven't yet figured out how to link them all together into something that would actually work as a computer.

[ufo]

Definitely not the most reliable news source, but this article helped me understand what's going on in the quantum computing world:

https://gizmodo.com/what-the-hell-is-a-quantum-computer-and-how-excited-sho-1819296509

Enjoy :smallsmile:

[Eldan]

I remember a talk I saw a few years ago now about how it had, at the time, become possible to effectively measure and influence a single atom well enough that it could basically function as one Qbit. As the article says, however, the current problem is connecting more than a handful of them together into one machine without everything collapsing.

[Grinner]

Ta da. (https://quantumexperience.ng.bluemix.net/qx/experience) whitespace

[Lord Torath]

I want to say that China has sent up a satellite with a quantum computer on-board. But I might have mis-remembered the story.

[monomer]

The best we have right now are Quantum Annealers (https://arstechnica.com/science/2017/01/explaining-the-upside-and-downside-of-d-waves-new-quantum-computer/). They aren't general purpose computing machines, but they can be set up to solve sets of problems that are biased towards quantum computing. I believe the most recent generation is faster than what a regular supercomputer running in the same power range for correctly optimised problems, though not drastically so.