[d4vlx]

My biggest problem with these results is that they are comparing the D-Wave machine against classical simulations that are built to solve the same problems the D-Wave is best at solving. The gold standard in the quantum algorithms world is to show that you can solve a given problem faster than any possible classical approach in the O(n) sense. This has been done for many problems, notably search, which can be done in sqrt(n) vs n/2. Factoring is faster but has not been proven to be faster than all possible classical approaches.

Another way to put this is that what this post is saying is that problem x can be solved y times faster on the D-Wave machine when compared to classical systems designed to act like the D-Wave machine. There are many other classical approaches that could be use to solve x. If the problem was significant enough a best know classical algorithm could be devised and implemented on an asic. Could the D-Wave machine beat this approach?

Or for less significant problems, could the cost of the D-Wave machine compare to paying someone to devise an special purpose algorithm per problem and implement it in C, Java, C#, Haskell / other fast languages. How much does it cost to pay someone to do this one something like top coder?

[joe_the_user]

Sure but D-Wave is pretty much a "Silver-not-gold" level quantum computing device.

They are, more or less, clear that they aren't doing real, general purpose quantum computing but special purpose quantum computing.

It would be great to have a general purpose quantum computer. D-Wave is spec'd as such, sorry.

It's possible that D-Wave is a clever special-purpose classical machine that's just being hyped as a quantum machine. But the linked article seems to give good evidence that D-Wave is what it claims to be; a special purpose quantum computer, which is indeed different than a general purpose quantum computer.

One thing to think about is that D-Wave may be going just a little beyond what's possible but, apparently, using quantum computing to go that little, they learning something possible interesting about creating a quantum computing device.

[d4vlx]

I don't have any issue with the fact that it is special purpose, I have a hard time calling it a success before it can be shown to be better than any known classical approaches at something.

I love the fact that they are trying and are spreading awareness of quantum computing but I take issue with some of their claims. They have a long history of making unsubstantiated and sensationalized claims. They also have a portfolio of patents many of which were arguably discovered by someone else or are overly broad.