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by eggie 3960 days ago
I also would love to hear someone who works in the space explain this.
1 comments

The paper is pretty accessible:

http://www.dwavesys.com/sites/default/files/ttt_arxiv_v1.pdf

The money quote:

"a D-Wave computation is both quantum and analog, with nothing resembling a discrete instruction or basic operation that can be counted"

So it's not really a quantum computer at all in the sense that the term is usually understood nowadays. It's an analog computer. And if you believe Scott Aaronson (and I do) it's a classical analog computer.