My level of expertise on quantum computing is low.
The announce of the imminent advent of the Quantum Computer seems to be recurring every few months these last few years because it's a moving target.
HN recently featured an article about a supposed quantum-only algorithm being applied to normal computing. Algorithms are a vastly larger space to explore than general computing paradigms.
Computer hardware is still advancing forward in performance even though single-threaded performance is stalling in relation.
We're moving away from general computing, this is always happening, but the current environments are pushing us back towards transputers. There's a place for special purpose quantum hardware, but right now the money is in making the most general quantum cpus possible(D-wave being an exception because annealing has many uses where it excels.)
> The announce of the imminent advent of the Quantum Computer seems to be recurring every few months these last few years because it's a moving target.
That's mostly misreporting by the media and perhaps d-wave overselling their capabilities. If you actually listen to experts they're far more guarded in their statements.
Yes, there has been a lot of animosity in the quantum information community for a long time against D-Wave for this very reason, as researchers are worried about them over-promising and ushering in an analogue of the AI winter as a result.
To my knowledge D-wave has never demonstrated any useful application of their annealer. They have also never managed to show any "quantum advantage" where an algorithm on their machine scales better than the best known classical algorithm.
The announce of the imminent advent of the Quantum Computer seems to be recurring every few months these last few years because it's a moving target.
HN recently featured an article about a supposed quantum-only algorithm being applied to normal computing. Algorithms are a vastly larger space to explore than general computing paradigms.
Computer hardware is still advancing forward in performance even though single-threaded performance is stalling in relation.
We're moving away from general computing, this is always happening, but the current environments are pushing us back towards transputers. There's a place for special purpose quantum hardware, but right now the money is in making the most general quantum cpus possible(D-wave being an exception because annealing has many uses where it excels.)