Google set to make its own energy efficient ARM Server chip

Reference please. There is no "halfway house". And where you get that 10x to 100x improvement I do not know. Entanglement is a harsh mistress.

Why not look at a real quantum computer? They seem to be readily available now and there are several nearby me at NASA and Google and another at Lockheed-Martin. See:

A picture of one complete quantum computer is here -- it's a huge cube:

Sorry, those are not quantum computers. I know DWave well. Exactly what they are is not yet clear ( not least because DWave as part of their "sales" puts on a restriction that the purchaser is not allowed to look into the system to see what is there.)

Oooh. I can post pictures too. Mine looks like a beached whale.

Sorry, those are not quantum computers. I know DWave well. Exactly what they are is not yet clear ( not least because DWave as part of their "sales" puts on a restriction that the purchaser is not allowed to look into the system to see what is there.)

Oooh. I can post pictures too. Mine looks like a beached whale.

I suppose D-Wave is the nearest you get to a "halfway house" - it's an unusual system that is not a quantum computer, but is sold as a quantum computer. It's a fantastic marketing ploy - they can sell this device for vast sums of money, when it is merely a specialised logic system for "solving" (I say "solving", since its answers are approximate) some types of optimisation problems using simulated annealing. It is not a classical logic device - but it is not a quantum computer either.

/Real/ quantum computers have been built - and they have managed such feats as factoring 21 quite quickly.

D-Wave have made and sold several systems, despite being slower than a desktop machine that can be bought for perhaps a 10,000th of the price. (The famous "3600 times faster than a PC" claim has been thoroughly debunked - and even it were true, D-Waves would still not offer value for money.)

Personally, I don't think quantum computing will ever offer value for money, or value for energy. It is an interesting idea, and I am sure that from all the time and money spent on it there will come new ideas and understanding of quantum mechanics - and maybe /useful/ applications. And I also think that it might inspire alternative computing architectures using classical logic, that could solve some problems more efficiently than normal cpu's (like using graphics cards as computing cores). But I think quantum computing itself will be about as successful as neural networks (and how many people remember them?).

I don't know whether quantum computing will ever live up to the hype. Neural networks may not have, but they're still an active area of research (see, for example, the IEEE Transactions on Neural Networks and Learning Systems) and - I have heard - have largely taken over pattern recognition/classifier tasks.

Probably not too many embedded systems (these days) have such needs...

The problem/answer is that everything around you is implemented with quantum computers.

To borrow quantum computing elements from everything around you and then make a computer that does useful things is where half the problems lie. The other half of the problem is how to feed everyday problems into a quantum computer and get an every day compatible answer.

There is nothing certain about quantum reality, and that makes the task of building quantum computers a very real uncertainty.

My idea was to do away with building quantum computers with quantum computing elements and replace it with digital logic (like the way we do away analog computing elements with digital computing elements) and see if something useful can be salvaged.

The answer seems to be yes - 5% extra silicon for digital version of quantum computers in exchange for 10x to 100x performance improvement. But software is a lot harder to build. I would like to say how its done, but you would have patent trolls on your back in no time. Particularly from USA.

Yes, there /are/ some neural networks in use. In almost every case, neural network systems are simulated on classical computers - the structures and algorithms are used for (as you say) pattern recognition systems such as optical character recognition software. There have been a number of "hardware" neural network systems made, but few have made it out of laboratories.

In other works, neural networks did not come close to "living up to the hype", but are still of interest in niche areas and in research. I believe the same will happen with quantum computing.

This is certainly possible - but it is far from being a new idea. Almost everything in the "quantum computing" world is done like this - it is all simulated in classical logic. Most is simulated on normal cpus and PC's, but some will use FPGA's for faster specialised logic. Since the best /real/ quantum computers take months to set up, then run for a few milliseconds at a time to answer problems like "what are the prime factors of 21?", research and theory is all done with simulations (or just pencil and paper).

It is this statement that no one believes - it is completely fabricated. It is so far from any sort of reality that it barely warrants a reply.

What /is/ realistic is that thinking in terms of quantum computing can give ideas to new algorithms or new ways of solving problems (using classical logic or normal cpus) - sometimes simulating aspects of a different system can be used for other purposes. Examples include using neural network ideas and simulations for pattern recognition, or using simulated annealing (as done by the D-Wave machines) to give fast approximate answers to some optimisation problems.

Don't worry about patents or trolls. If you think you've had a good idea here, you can be confident that a lot of other people have thought of it already.

? Wrong page? We gone past ideas of simulations.

That remains to be seen surely?

If I see it, I let you know.

No, "we" have not gone past simulation. "real" quantum machines are far too small and far too expensive to be used for developing theories and ideas. They are used to demonstrate that things like Shor's algorithm can work in reality - even though it is only for tiny numbers. And obviously there is plenty of research work done on how quantum computers can be implemented. But that's it.

If you are talking about /your/ ideas here, then clearly they have not got as far as simulation, or even as far as vague plans about how simulation might be possible.

No, it is historical fact that considering new types of computing architecture can lead to new ideas and algorithms on conventional architectures. Of course no one can predict that a particular architecture /will/ lead to new algorithms - we can merely say that it is likely.

Perhaps I am being unreasonably cynical, but do you /really/ think /you/ have thought of an idea that will give 100x computing performance for 5% extra silicon, and no one else has thought of it?

As I said, if you've had a /good/ idea here, others will have got there first. So if it is unique to you, perhaps it is not so good after all?

Of course, just because something is impossible to implement does not mean you can't patent it - IBM has patents on faster than light travel, just in case someone /does/ manage it. You could certainly patent your ideas, and maybe even make some money suing people or by selling it to a patent troll - reality has never been much of a hinder in the American patent courts.

Do you mean "you" are still stuck?

Eh? Seems to be stuck in some old page of an old book again. Every day new reasearch results are made. Do you ever review them?

Fail again. If I see it, I will let you know.

Whatever.