The 1,000-qubit chip promised by D-Wave last year has landed.
The 1,000-plus-qubit device was originally planned for the end of 2014.
The doubling of qubits over its previous processor, the company says, gives it a 21000 search space – not only dwarfing the previous 2512 search space, but containing “far more possibilities than there are particles in the observable universe”.
The processors also contain 128,000 Josephson tunnel junctions, the outfit says, which it reckons are “the most complex superconductor integrated circuits ever successfully yielded”.
Just what that means out in the world of computing, we'll have to wait and see. The Register expects the new processor will result in yet more is-it-quantum academic debate in paper and counter-paper (Arxiv should be worth watching) once researchers get their hands on test systems.
Hype? To read more, click here.