Curating the Internet: Science and technology micro-summaries for September 24, 2019

Google claims to achieve quantum supremacy; IBM increasing their quantum computing farm, including a new 53 qubit giant; Four questions for your surgeon; IBM's new z15 mainframe computer; and a Steem essay with more details about IBM's new 53 qubit quantum device

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Google researchers have reportedly achieved “quantum supremacy” - Google's claim was posted in a paper on the nasa.gov web site, but the paper was subsequently taken down. This is in line with previous statements from Google that (according to Neven's Law) they would achieve quantum supremacy during 2019, but the company has not yet commented (as of Monday). The now-deleted paper said that Google's quantum computer solved a problem in 3 minutes and 20 seconds that could take 10,000 years for the world's fastest classical computer. If true, this is a big deal because it opens a whole new class of computing, but it is likely a highly specialized problem that was tailored for solution by quantum algorithms. The article also notes that, "In fact quantum computers will never reign ‘supreme’ over classical ones, but will work in concert with them, since each have their specific strengths.". Also, quantum computers are still error prone, and it will be years before they're ready to tackle useful real-world problems. h/t RealClear Science
- Science and technology micro-summaries for June 29, 2019
- Science and technology micro-summaries for June 23, 2019

IBM cuts ribbon on quantum computing centre wherein a 53-qubit monster lurks - IBM's quantum computing fleet now consists of 10 machines, five have 20 qubits, one has 14 qubits, and four have 5 qubits. The company has now announced that it has plans to increase that total by 10, with four of them coming on line in the next month. One of those four new computers will have a total of 53 qubits, which would be the largest system in the industry that is available for external access. IBM says its customers have run 14 million experiments and published 200 research papers since 2016 using their quantum computing technology. In order to keep the qubits stable, the system runs at, "super-cooled temperatures of 10 millikelvin (-273.14˚C)."

4 questions you should always ask your doctor - Backed by statistics and personal experience, here is a TED talk with four questions that Christer Mjåset says you should ask your surgeon: (i) What are the risks? (ii) Is this really necessary? (iii) Are there other options? (iv) What happens if I don't do anything?

IBM Introduces Next-Gen Z Mainframe: The z15; Wider Cores, More Cores, More Cache, Still 5.2 GHz - As with the z14, the platform makes use of a "central processor cluster" which consists of processors, memory and I/O interconnects. It differs from the z14, however, in that the number of processors is reduced from 6 processors with 10 cores to 4 processors with 12 cores in each drawer. The level 3 cache doubled in size to 256 MiB. The article summarizes the fundamental changes to the central processors, themselves, as follows: "Both the z14 and z15 are roughly 700 mm². They are both fabricated on the same 14-nanometer FinFET on SOI process. Yet, somehow IBM managed to improve the z15 cores, add two more cores, and double the L3 cache by adding 128 MiB of additional capacity? IBM claims that through a new eDRAM macro design they are able to deliver twice the density. Slightly over half of those transistors can be accounted for with the new cache addition." h/t OS news

STEEM The New 53 Qubit Quantum Computer From IBM - Here on the Steem blockchain, @kralizec has more about IBM's new 53 qubit quantum computer. According to the post, IBM plans to use the "Quantum Advantage" as a way "to solve extremely complex problems such as quantum simulations of molecular systems.", and one of the first customers will be Mitsubishi Chemical who will use the system to investigate the interaction between lithium and air in their lithium-air batteries. (A 10% beneficiary setting has been applied to this post for @kralizec.)

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I read back in those June articles that they were expecting to achieve quantum supremacy during 2019, but it still sort-of caught me by surprise. I wish they hadn't pulled down the paper from the NASA site, though. I'd like to know more about the problem that they were working on. Neven's Law says that quantum computing grows at a doubly-exponential rate, far faster than Moore's Law. If that holds, the gains will be astonishing in the relatively near future.

On a housekeeping note, one of the things I didn't really think about when I started this series is that over time I'm starting to build a nice little knowledge base here on the blockchain. I sort of like the way that's working out. One of these days, I'm going to have to write a script to create an index with links into all these posts based on topic.

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lemouth (72) · 5 years ago

The race to quantum computing! I have never investigated anything to solve my own problems. However, in my field, things are starting to move as well (see for instance the work made by the NuQS collaboration).

$0.09

4 votes

remlaps-lite (76) · 5 years ago

$0.00

The index would be nice, also to be able to follow up specific topics :)

shayan143 (64) · 5 years ago

Thanks for sharing knowledge.

1 vote

steemstem (73) · 5 years ago

This post has been voted on by the SteemSTEM curation team and voting trail. It is elligible for support from @curie and @minnowbooster.

If you appreciate the work we are doing, then consider supporting our witness @stem.witness. Additional witness support to the curie witness would be appreciated as well.

For additional information please join us on the SteemSTEM discord and to get to know the rest of the community!

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