Physicists developing a quantum computer that’s entirely open source(physics.aps.org)
82 pointsby tzury8 hours ago6 comments
  • infinitewalkan hour ago
    For those interested in the compiler/software stack and control hardware: https://pennylane.ai/blog/2025/12/open-source-quantum-comput...
  • dr_dshiv4 hours ago
    If you want to try quantum vibecoding, I threw up a site at https://www.haiqu.org where you can mcp with the quantum computer at TU Delft. Free, after you make an account.
  • GlibMonkeyDeath6 hours ago
    Couldn't find any cost estimate, but from https://openquantumdesign.org/the-quantum-computer (scroll down to "What's Inside") I'm guessing 100's of k$ for the bill of materials (let alone keeping the thing going.)

    So the "you" in "your own" has to have pretty deep pockets...for a relatively low fidelity 30 qubit device.

    • TurdF3rguson3 hours ago
      > So the "you" in "your own" has to have pretty deep pockets...for a relatively low fidelity 30 qubit device.

      Sure but once you buy it, all the "you"s in all the other universes get to have one too.

      • roarcheran hour ago
        And yet they won't split the bill with me. Bunch of freeloaders.
    • spaqin5 hours ago
      Most of the cost is in overpriced laser systems; if that gets solved a trapped-ion system could be reproduced for few tens of thousands of USDs. Still not a hobby weekend project, but certainly more attainable for more universities.
    • nanobuilds5 hours ago
      Okay so not a weekend project.
    • 5 hours ago
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  • ion_trapper5 hours ago
    This effort is likely aimed at industrial/academic entities and not "you" as in a single person. But anyway, it needs to be emphasized that the phrase "quantum computer" is today used to mean anything ranging from

    -a useless machine that produces a signal indistinguishable from noise TO -a highly sophisticated marvel of science and engineering that performs otherwise impossible calculations

    Many industrial quantum computers today fall closer to the the former category than the latter. A single person or small team with minimal funding has basically no hope of building anything meaningful.

    I don't know of any other device that has such a broad range of quality represented under one name. Maybe like calling ELIZA and Opus 4.6 both "AI".

    • cwillu5 hours ago
      All “industrial” quantum computers currently fall entirely in the former category. Anyone trying to tell you otherwise is selling snake oil.
      • ion_trapper5 hours ago
        Is there a QC out there that can perform a commercially useful computation? No, not yet. And yes snake oil is abound. But the reality is not two categories, it's a spectrum. Some are more useless than others.
        • cwillu5 hours ago
          No, it's not a spectrum in any meaningful sense. There are scam companies (some with semi-respectable research departments attached to them) and there are research projects. Anyone selling devices with the promise that those devices will do anything useful for their customers are simply lying.

          It's like fusion energy: there are legitimate companies working on the problem, and they may even succeed at some point, but anyone willing to deliver a 1MW fusion plant tomorrow is scamming you, because the technology doesn't work yet.

          • ottah3 hours ago
            I have far more faith that fusion someday might be useful than I do for quantum computing.
        • monero-xmr3 hours ago
          The first QC that decrypts previously undecipherable text will have incalculable value to the government that surrounds it. QC companies are bullshit because they will take whatever free non-gov money they can, why not? They exist to absorb government money, rightly so, but their public profile is simply to get money from private sector sources
  • 5 hours ago
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  • g42gregory5 hours ago
    Do we have an example of a real quantum computer doing some kind of a computation that is not easily accessible by the regular computer?

    I keep hearing about "the promise" and "achieving quantum supremacy" (again!), but is there a real example of a quantum machine doing something useful in real life?

    • cwillu5 hours ago
      No, there are none; the closest we currently have are various special purpose and more or less hard-coded machines that demonstrate that scaling exists; various general-purpose machines operating on handfuls of qubits demonstrating the various gates; and various snake oil scams that may or may not have semi-respectable research divisions associated with them.
      • jgilias15 minutes ago
        Interesting, do you work in that field?
    • ion_trapper5 hours ago
      The Venn diagram of "useful" and "not possible on a classical computer" has demonstrations on both disjoint ends but is currently empty in the intersection. For now. I fully sympathize with the hype-fatigue though.
      • moi238826 minutes ago
        What about Schor’s algorithm?
    • CamperBob25 hours ago
      No. It's as if there's a "No computing with this shit" theorem, enforced by nature alongside "No FTL communications," "No hidden variables," "No, you can't build a transporter, not yours," and "No cloning."