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Willow quantum chip demonstrates verifiable quantum advantage on hardware

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429 points AbhishekParmar | 10 comments | 22 Oct 25 15:16 UTC | HN request time: 0.434s | source | bottom
1. nashashmi ◴[22 Oct 25 15:38 UTC] No.45670773[source]▶
Before the mega monopolies took over, corps used to partner with universities to conduct this kind of research. Now we have bloated salaries, rich corporations, and expensive research while having under experienced graduates. These costs will get forwarded to the consumer. The future won’t have a lot of things that we have come to expect.
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2. Rover222 ◴[22 Oct 25 15:51 UTC] No.45670996[source]▶
Nihilism is to trendy right now
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3. reaperducer ◴[22 Oct 25 16:06 UTC] No.45671233[source]▶
Before the mega monopolies took over, corps used to partner with universities to conduct this kind of research. Now we have bloated salaries, rich corporations, and expensive research while having under experienced graduates. These costs will get forwarded to the consumer. The future won’t have a lot of things that we have come to expect.

I don't disagree, but these days I'm happy to see any advanced research at all.

Granted, too often I see the world through HN-colored glasses, but it seems like so many technological achievements are variations on getting people addicted to something in order to show them ads.

Did Bellcore or Xerox PARC do a lot of university partnerships? I was into other things in those days.

4. Rebelgecko ◴[22 Oct 25 16:12 UTC] No.45671334[source]▶
Funnily enough I remember reading a comment a week or two ago decrying the death of corporate research labs like Bell Labs and Xerox PARC
5. ibejoeb ◴[22 Oct 25 16:45 UTC] No.45671797[source]▶
I don't think it's accurate to attribute some kind of altruism to these research universities. Have a look at some of those pay packages or the literal hedge funds that they operate. And they're mostly exempt from taxation.
6. steego ◴[22 Oct 25 16:50 UTC] No.45671873[source]▶
Nihilism is one response to disillusionment.

Another response is to come to terms with a possibly meaningless and Sisyphean reality and to keep pushing the boulder (that you care about) up the hill anyway.

I’m glad the poster is concerned and/or disillusioned about the hype, hyperbole and deception associated with this type of research.

It suggests he still cares.

7. auxiliarymoose ◴[22 Oct 25 16:50 UTC] No.45671876[source]▶
From the article:

> in partnership with The University of California, Berkeley, we ran the Quantum Echoes algorithm on our Willow chip...

And the author affiliations in the Nature paper include:

Princeton University; UC Berkeley; University of Massachusetts, Amherst; Caltech; Harvard; UC Santa Barbara; University of Connecticut; UC Santa Barbara; MIT; UC Riverside; Dartmouth College; Max Planck Institute.

This is very much in partnership with universities and they clearly state that too.

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8. nashashmi ◴[22 Oct 25 16:52 UTC] No.45671902[source]▶
Thanks. I could not find any mention of it. This is good.
9. ◴[22 Oct 25 17:09 UTC] No.45672126[source]▶
10. chermi ◴[22 Oct 25 20:29 UTC] No.45674755[source]▶
Did you bother looking at the author list? This is a grand statement that's easily refuted by just looking.

Maybe you're thinking specifically of LLM labs. I agree this is happening there, but I wouldn't be as dramatic. Everywhere else, university-corporation/government lab partnerships are still going very strong.