And it turns out to be the size of refrigerator.. A super refrigerator of course! D-wave’s quantum computer is based on super conducting circuitry (achieved by super cooling).

ABC News has a story and a picture from the inside of D-Wave’s quantum computer that was unveiled today at the Computer Museum in Silicon Valley.

The Daily Telegraph had this to say:

Canadians win race to build ‘super computer’

A small Canadian company appears to have beaten the world’s research giants in the race to build the world’s first commercially viable “quantum computer”, a breakthrough technology billions of times faster than today’s most powerful computers.

D-Wave Systems, Inc, based near Vancouver, says its new freezer-sized machine is capable of performing perform 64,000 calculations at once and handling complex problems far beyond the reach of even the most powerful conventional computers.
The global race to build the first quantum computer has been underway for years with organisations such as IBM, Japan’s NEC, and the US Department of Defence funding research into the notoriously difficult technology.

So it seems there is really something to D-Wave’s claims. The press release from D-Wave is rather vague and I was not able to find iinfo about what kind of “commercial application” was tested in the demo.

I guess we’ll have to wait for more info to get a clear idea about the real magnitude and impact of this technology.

Read these related posts on 360east:

• D-Wave: a company claims it has a quantum computer
• Jordanian Universities: Can you build a supercomputer?
• Will Commodore be back?
• Is ANYONE reporting/confirming the big layoffs in Jordan’s banking sector?
• The rise and rise of Ammoun News