For most tasks Quantum Computers are slower then binary computers, they won't replace binary anytime soon. Not even nVidia Titan; use Quantum.
Last edited by JerometheGiraff; 20 Jul 2013 at 01:11. Reason: If I could afford the Titan I would buy :)
As I said, they can do stuff a normal computer cannot, regardless of power. Like say Integer factorization. With just that a working quantum computer would literally insta-rape the bulk of modern encryption without an excessive power/time just because it can run algorithms that cannot run on a normal computer.
It can run various algorithms of standard computers with much more performance as it can take tons of shortcuts.
Not to mention that they can do physical simulations of quantum physics/chemistry with far less power (using quantum processes themselves does provide a significant edge in this field).
But yeah, in consumer products they don't make any sense.
As I don't think that it will be faster+better+cheaper+less power hungry than a the average ARM processors that can already run a friggin media center today.
People won't suddenly need to run quantum simulations on an Ipad, and there is a limit even to how much HD a movie can reasonably get before human senses won't be able to pick up the difference.
The human factor will limit their use to labs for quite some time, if not forever.
BTW, the Titan is just a glorified BIG calculator running Linux. Unless you have a specific math problem for it (or some serious rendering to do) it's not particularly useful.
I think this should be read about the "glorified big calculator". That kind of power is use for weather modeling, space trajectory plotting for two things.
Introducing Titan | The World's #1 Open Science Supercomputer
You said "have the answer". They have the answer already. They are just fancy front-ends for database interrogation, on a database that contains data. The answers.
Any kind of calculation with a ridiculous amount of variables. Physics and engineering simulations involving fluid dynamics (gas and liquid materials are fluids) are the first thing that springs to mind.what could they be needing this much calculations
They need this stuff for biology and medical research, like say protein folding. (although admittedly, given the 3D structural nature of the problem they had some pretty good success by employing thousands of human gamers with Foldit), or elaborating data scanned by tomographies or whatever to make the connectome (map of connections between cells inside the brain, it's "circuit schematics" so to speak).
3D Rendering is another serious task (although it's just for our entertainment). CGI at the quality needed by movies requires a ton of calculations, as it needs to move horribly High Polygon (more precise/lifelike) models with HD textures/shaders/bumpmaps at a murderous resolution and take pictures of that movement at 24 times per second.
This article talks about the CGI rendering used in Transformers 3. This goes in more detail for another 3D movie (Rango) with some details about the same renderfarm used in Transformers 3.
No, if one asks a question whose answer is not in a data base, there's no answer. As the holographic mentor in I Robot, you must ask the right question.
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