pull down to refresh

“If you said 15 years for very useful quantum computers, that would probably be on the early side,” he said during Nvidia’s analyst day. “If you said 30, it’s probably on the late side. But if you picked 20, I think a whole bunch of us would believe it.”

This area, more than anything I can think of, is such a hive of confusion for me. Every time anyone tries to explain anything about the state of QC my eyes gloss over. I wonder if there's some weird effect that anybody who understands QC well enough to try to explain it is also an awful communicator? Like the type of brain that can do one can't do the other?

Counter-examples greatly appreciated.

reply

I agree completely. Every few years the threat FUD rears its head, OGs dismiss it, and then arguments ensue as to the significance of the latest developments.

reply

My guess it's because the theory way outpaces the execution. So people always get hyped coz of the theory, but no one can explain the actual new developments because they're actually more engineering related and less about the theory of quantum computing.

My understanding is that the difficulty is keeping qubits in a state of quantum superposition until computation is needed. It's like Schrodinger's Cat: it's both dead and alive (I know I'm butchering the interpretation) until someone measures it... the difficulty is keeping it from getting measured.

reply

plunge is a euphemism! Do you know that there is ~Stacker_Stocks territory? 🤠

reply

Yes, but I purposely wanted the emphasis to be on the state of quantum computing, not the price of Nvidia.

reply
reply

Tech always goes slower than estimated. I was told my truck driving job would be obsolete in 7 years when I first started driving. That was 14 years ago.

reply

I guess Bitcoin won't be broken in 2 years like Chamath said. Haha.

reply

Two years more until next Bitcoin fork

reply