A Powerful New Quantum Computer With a Fight On Its Hands

The quantum computing company D-Wave Systems has announced that its latest device features twice the computing capacity of its previous best—but parts of the scientific community remain skeptical, and other devices may soon compete with it. D-Wave’s new $15 million 2000Q quantum computer contains 2,000 qubits, the quantum equivalent of binary bits. It claims that, for specialized problems that are well-suited to quantum devices, it’s at least 1,000 times faster than CPU- and GPU-based devices. But despite Google tests claiming that D-Wave’s technology works, some scientists remain skeptical about whether its qubits are robust enough to provide the exponential leap in computational power promised by quantum computing. Meanwhile, other researchers—at Google, Microsoft, IBM, and many universities—are working hard to develop their own quantum computers. And, as Nature reported earlier this month, those devices may soon make their way out of the laboratory. D-Wave’s system may be fast, but it also has a fight ahead.