IBM, Cisco Outline Plans For Networks of Quantum Computers By Early 2030s 19
IBM and Cisco plan to link quantum computers over long distances by the early 2030s, "with the goal of demonstrating the concept is workable by the end of 2030," reports Reuters. "The move could pave the way for a quantum internet, though executives at the two companies cautioned that the networks would require technologies that do not currently exist and will have to be developed with the help of universities and federal laboratories." From the report: The challenge begins with a problem: Quantum computers like IBM's sit in massive cryogenic tanks that get so cold that atoms barely move. To get information out of them, IBM has to figure out how to transform information in stationary "qubits" -- the fundamental unit of information in a quantum computer -- into what Jay Gambetta, director of IBM Research and an IBM fellow, told Reuters are "flying" qubits that travel as microwaves.
But those flying microwave qubits will have to be turned into optical signals that can travel between Cisco switches on fiber-optic cables. The technology for that transformation -- called a microwave-optical transducer -- will have to be developed with the help of groups like the Superconducting Quantum Materials and Systems Center, led by the Fermi National Accelerator Laboratory near Chicago, among others. Along the way, Cisco and IBM will also publish open-source software to weave all the parts together.
But those flying microwave qubits will have to be turned into optical signals that can travel between Cisco switches on fiber-optic cables. The technology for that transformation -- called a microwave-optical transducer -- will have to be developed with the help of groups like the Superconducting Quantum Materials and Systems Center, led by the Fermi National Accelerator Laboratory near Chicago, among others. Along the way, Cisco and IBM will also publish open-source software to weave all the parts together.
Quantum entanglement (Score:4, Insightful)
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posting to undo moderation
Re:Quantum entanglement (Score:4, Insightful)
the two companies cautioned that the networks would require technologies that do not currently exist
So they admit they're going to hook up technologies that don't exist using other technologies that don't exist, but they've used the word quantum so I'll give them all my money.
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Keep some money for crapto and "AI"! Other scammers want to make money too...
Re:Quantum entanglement (Score:4, Informative)
In actual reality, it gets farther and farther away over time. At this time, a prediction of "maybe in 30 years" would already be overly charitable. QC effort clearly scales exponentially in the number of effective qbits and (!) the length of the computation.
Hence forget it. Physics may be done, but this is not a useful computation mechanism.
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But, the all-important questions is... can it run Doom?
If the only real use for it is unbreakable encryption... what's the real point? Any encryption has to be breakable (have a decryption key), otherwise there's no point to using it. And, for any encryption method developed since the advent of dumb terminals, at a minimum, the US Government has the key... they're not going to let you encrypt your terrorism plans and post them all over the 'net without them being able to look at them... so, the same would
More IBM vaporware (Score:1)
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You may be experiencing dementia, old boy. OS/2 was released in numerous variants, some of which might actually work on occasion.
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OS/2 was NOT vaporware. OS/2 was pretty good and far better than anything MS had at the time. But then some moronic decisions killed it.
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Sad but true.
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OS/2 had no security features needed for multiuser support. It might as well have been classic MacOS. Citrix had a multiuser version of OS/2 with security tacked on, but it wasn't a realistic solution and was never popular. Building an OS without security was the moronic decision that killed it. Plus IBM never did anything meaningful to promote it so nobody cared. That it was used anywhere (especially in ATMs) was a horrible decision itself because of the lack of security features and has created untold woe
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THAT is your criticism? Seems pretty invalid to me, because Windows did not really do any better back when.
Re: More IBM vaporware (Score:2)
NT existed when IBM brought out at least two major versions of OS/2 without such features while NT had them, so... No.
Watson could already do this in 1999 (Score:2)
Watson could do anything and bring WorldPeace (c)(tm)(r) at the same time.
Networks of bullshit ... (Score:2)
... are still bullshit. At this time they are just truing to keep the reporting alive because it is utterly clear they will not deliver any computing hardware in the foreseeable future.
There will never be a Quantum Internet (Score:2)
Quantum "bandwidth" decays exponentially as a function of distance.