[Anusha]

Twenty years before it was expected

A COMMERCIAL outfit claims that it is ready to release what it is calling the first quantum computer.

D-Wave of British Columbia has promised to demonstrate a quantum computer next week that can carry out 64,000 calculations at the same time in parallel "universes". The computer can massively speed up searches and optimisation calculations.

If it has managed to do it, the computer could make current security systems obsolete as a quantum computer can crack any current cryptography scheme by providing an unlimited amount of simultaneous processing resources.

The machine D-Wave wants to flog has only 16 qubits, but systems with hundreds of qubits would be able to process more inputs than there are atoms in the universe.

Boffins wonder if the outfit has really got a Quantum computer to sell as they were not really expecting to see one for another 20 years. Still you get temporal distortions when you mess around with parallel universes, and the machine has probably invented itself in the future and sent itself back through time.

More info here.