[dustingetz]

> That same month, mega defense contractor Lockheed Martin bought a D-Wave quantum computer and a support contract for $10 million.

lol, i used to work at LM advanced research, LM consistently blows 10 mil over 3 ears on stupid dead end projects and nobody even blinks. This is not a criticism of LM so much as it gives us insight into the size of budget and scope of projects the work with. they did 45bn revenue in 2011 per wikipedia. this d-wave project looks like a toy that some kids in a lab bought.

but it doesn't matter how it looks to us. quantum computing is a weapon, and as such is highly classified. i'm not sure we can draw any conclusions at all about the state of quantum computing from information in the public domain and if LM had a larger relationship with d-wave or similar companies, we wouldn't know.

[flashingleds]

I have spoken to a guy who was at one point closely involved with the D-wave people. He suggested that the actual story with the Lockheed purchase was that LM sells an awful lot of gear to Canada, and as part of the contract they are expected to buy some number of million worth of Canadian tech in return. The D-wave purchase was one of these obligated purchases.

Just a comment given in unofficial conversation, take it how you will.

[loboman]

Are you saying that Lockheed had 45bn revenue in 2011 from wikipedia? how does that work?

[aaronblohowiak]

The parent is citing wikipedia. Saying "per wikipedia" is using "per" to mean "according to", not using it to mean "for each"

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lockheed_martin

[loboman]

Thank you for the clarification. I didn't know that.