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If the D-Wave is actually using quantum annealing for it's algorithms, how is it playing "fake it till we make it" simply by not having optimized its output to be currently faster than classical systems? I think it's pretty easy to see how the government and private institutions that are purchasing D-Wave Two's (universities and research divisions) see them as potentially great tools separate from their processing output. Business people are a separate entity and I would be surprised, and doubtful of their acumen, if any were actually purchasing any.

If they turn out to be quantum in origin, I think you are way off base in this prediction.



It's not able to do full quantum annealing; it's only able to use stoquastic Hamiltonians on a fixed topology. Even if truly quantum effects were present (which is unclear at the moment, see Smolin and Smith arxiv posts), it's not known to be a useful quantum computing model. So it's not just an issue of "optimizing output".




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