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I am new to the quantum world and it's computing. But it accidentally hit in my mind that DWave built a quantum computer with 2000 qubits which can be use to simulate the whole observable universe or to simulate whole brain for finding what out about consciousness. And the future plan of Dwave is to build a quantum computer with 5000 qubits, which is a lot higher.

Recently Google made a quantum computer and claims to have achieved quantum supremacy.

But what is the problem with running the experiment, which can solve the centuries-old problem using quantum computer with 2000 qubits?

Any help would be appreciated.

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  • $\begingroup$ Hey Anish - Could you clarify your question? Something to note is that DWave's chip is of a significantly different type than Google's, meaning that the qubit counts cannot be compared directly. Are you wondering whether a DWave device could demonstrate quantum supremacy? $\endgroup$
    – C. Kang
    Nov 14, 2019 at 16:27
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    $\begingroup$ "built a quantum computer with 2000 Qubit which can be use to simulate the whole observable universe or to simulate whole brain for finding what the consciousness . And the future plan of Dwave is to build a quantum computer with 5000 qubits which is a lot of bit" it is not a computer in the sense that it can perform arbitrary computations, and no, it cannot "simulate the whole observable universe" etc. Where did you read that? Also, can you clarify the question? Are you asking whether D-Wave can be used for q supremacy experiments, or something else? $\endgroup$
    – glS ♦
    Nov 14, 2019 at 18:12
  • $\begingroup$ Hi Anish, welcome to QCSE. I have made some edits of your question for clarity and readability; I hope I did not deviate from the spirit of your question. But I agree with @C.Kang and gIS that the question is kind of unclear now. Can you further edit your question for clarity? $\endgroup$
    – Mark Spinelli
    Nov 14, 2019 at 18:26
  • $\begingroup$ Personally, I think statements like a "to simulate the whole observable universe" or "to simulate whole brain for finding what out about consciousness" are simply a marketing. As mentioned above, could you please post a link to articles on those? $\endgroup$
    – Martin Vesely
    Nov 14, 2019 at 21:05

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D-Wave's 2000Q is a quantum annealer, not a circuit-based quantum computer like Google's Sycamore. The qubits in D-Wave's system are much noisier, less controlled and perform a fundamentally different type of computation compared to Google and IBM's circuit-based quantum computers.

D-Wave's current system cannot simulate the observable universe or the human brain. What led you to believe this? Despite the large number of qubits, noise and lack of control prevent their present system from any hope of demonstrating quantum supremacy.

According to John Preskill (here)

...as of now we don't have a convincing theoretical argument or persuasive experimental evidence indicating that quantum annealers can really speed up the time to solution compared to the best classical hardware running the best algorithms for the same problems.

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To add on the answer by Jonathan - the universal quantum computers we have today (like the ones provided by Google, IBM, IonQ) have order of ~100 qubits. The biggest one being IBM Eagle with 127 qubits.

However, don't let the number of qubits fool you - you can have a 500 qubit device but it'll be of no use if it's so noisy you can only run 1-2 layer circuits on it. Hence a better metric for how powerful a quantum computer is is the Quantum Volume. It basically measure both the breadth (number of qubits) and depth of a circuit (how many layers you can run before getting pure noise).

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  • $\begingroup$ Note that the 127-qubit processor is called Washington. Eagle is a name of processors family (something like type of core in classical processors). $\endgroup$
    – Martin Vesely
    Mar 18, 2022 at 5:02
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    $\begingroup$ I think IBM uses the word "system" to refer to the actual machines you can connect to, such as ibm_washington (127 qubit) or ibm_brooklyn (65 qubit). They are all listed here. $\endgroup$
    – na na
    Mar 18, 2022 at 9:04

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