Has D-Wave Systems built the world’s first commercial quantum computer? The Canada-based company says it has but some physicists in the quantum-information community beg to differ. Putting aside heady questions like “Does it work?”, I think everyone agrees that the Tardis-sized black boxes that house D-Wave’s processors look great. But what exactly is inside?
I had a chance to look inside when I visited D-Wave in Vancouver in 2012 and what I saw was lots of empty space: the edges of the box are Helmholtz coils that null the Earth’s magnetic field and the bigger the box the better. Now you can have a look courtesy of Jeremy Hilton – D-Wave’s vice-president of processor development – who plays tour guide in the above video.
You can read more about the controversy surrounding D-Wave in this article: “Is D-Wave’s quantum computer actually a quantum computer?”.
When I was in Vancouver I had a chat with D-Wave co-founder Geordie Rose along with several other quantum-computing experts. You can listen to that conversation in the podcast below.
