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0 pointshtourweoi43242y ago0 comments

The D-Wave ones surely can't (theoretically unproven if it's doing anything 'useful', even if 'quantum').The ones that others have, theoretically can in the 'awesome future', but as yet can't (too noisy).

Hype aside - the largest number factored using Shor on a physical device is 21 (unclear if they actually used the result of the factoring to design the circuits like they did with 15).

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adastra222y ago

That seems like a damning critique, but the reality is that quantum capabilities can and likely will advance as a series of step functions. The quantum machines we can build now are so noisy that we can’t even factor 3 digit numbers. However low nois quantum computers are on the drawing board and would bring many order of magnitude improvements nearly overnight.

tromp2y ago

> The quantum machines we can build now are so noisy that we can’t even factor 3 digit numbers.

Or most 2-digit numbers, for that matter. After more than a decade, the record still stands at 21=3x7 [1].

[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Integer_factorization_records#...

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