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owlbite ◴[] No.45083253[source]
So how many gates are we talking to factor some "cryptographically useful" number? Is there some pathway that makes quantum computers useful this century?
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Legend2440 ◴[] No.45084245[source]
Realistically, you want millions to billions of qubits to compete with classical computers that already have trillions of transistors.
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1. jameshart ◴[] No.45084916[source]
Ah - this helped me understand the numbers in quantum computing a little more clearly. I had been under the impression (based on my naive interpretation of the naming) that the number of qubits in a quantum processor might be something analogous to the number of bits of register state in a regular CPU; that qubits should be thought of more as analogous to transistors or maybe even gates makes it a little clearer why you need so many more qubits to perform more complex operations.