Controversial ‘Quantum Advantage’ claims made by computing firm D-Wave
The company says that it has solved the first problem of scientific relevance with quantum processor, which can be done with classical computers – but other people disagree
Advantage 2 Quantum Processor of D-Wave.
A ‘quantum processor’ has solved a physics problem on the behavior of magnetism in some solids that will take hundreds of thousands of years to calculate the largest traditional super computers. The result is the latest claim of a machine showing ‘quantum gains’ on classical computers.
Although Google and others have claimed to get quantum benefits-recently with a cycamor chip which Google unveiled in December-Bernbai, a Canadian company D-Wave researchers say that their results were published, published, published, ScienceThe first is which solves a real physics question. “We believe this is the first time someone has done it on the problem of scientific interest,” D-Wave Physicist Andrew King.
The D-Wave team has done a lot of work-but classical computing should not be counted yet, called Miles Stodenmire, a researcher at the Flatirone Institute Center for Computer Quantum Physics in New York City. “We are still in the race.”
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This result also validate the approach that the company has taken in quantum computing, says Raja. Instead of creating a ‘universal’ quantum computer, one that can run any quantum algorithm-D-Wave has focused on an approach that was limited to perform some calculations, but was easy on a scale.
An early pioneer in the quantum field, D-Wave machines have long led the industry, which is equivalent to classical bits of classical bits, in terms of quantum number. The latest processor has thousands of quints. Mohammad Amin, another senior physicist of the company, says, “These are the results of 25-year hardware development and research on D-Wave.”
Magnetic problem
The problem solved by D-Wave concerns the principle of magnetism, which is a large area of theoretical physics. Electron spin of each atom acts like magnetic needles, and the way they orient themselves inside a solid in response to their neighbors, they have provided a prototype for the study of complex systems for a long time.
In a specific permanent magnet, all align in the same direction. But in normal materials, neighboring spin gives conflicting effects on each other, and the steady arrangement is either not present or it is extremely difficult to predict. Quantum effects combine complications.
King, Amin and his colleagues used the latest de-wave machine called Advantage 2 to simulate the system of spin in many 3D crystal structures in de-waves and many academic laboratories. He studied a specific problem in which the temperature of the material starts at full zero, and quantum ups and downs allow it to transition from one state to another. They guess that their machine achieved rapid results compared to any classical calculations.
Profit claims were challenged
The result follows several claims of quantum gains. Google made the first claim of a quantum profit in a paper, which led to a sensation in 2019. It used a calculation to make a complete programable, or universal, quantum computer with superconducting cubits, designed to test for quantum benefits, but there was no practical application. Soon, IBM and other companies showed that by improving classical techniques, they could still run uniform calculations on ordinary computers.
IBM then received a quantum benefit on a useful application in 2023. But this claim faced a similar fortune for Google’s last year, when computational physicist Miles Stodenmire for Computes Quantum Physics in New York City, and his colleagues quickly solved the problem.
Last week, in response to a preprint version of D-Wave Paper, Stoudenmire posted a result on Arxiv in which his team improved on the classical algorithms that to calculate something similar to the D-Wave Machine.
“It is an excellent piece of research, as well as a great scientific success,” says Juan Karsquila, a computational physicist in Ath Zurich, and co-actor of D-Wave Paper. (A separate team also posted a challenge for some claims of D-Wave this week.) Nevertheless, D-Wave stood well in front of ‘Spufing’ from traditional computers, he says.
King says, “What he did, what we did is one of the most.” “They advanced the classical status of art, but not as our results.”
Stodenmyer’s team is improving its techniques to cover the D-Wave Simulation. “Now we are trying,” they say. “We believe it will work.” Generally, Stodenmyer says, it is often not appreciated how soon classical computing techniques are improving.
This article is reproduced with permission and was first published On March 12, 2025,