D-Wave founder and CTO Geordie Rose's slide deck from presentation at IDC's 50th HPC User Forum in Boston, September 11 2013.

1. The D-Wave Two
Dr. Geordie Rose
Founder and CTO, D-Wave
2:00PM September 11th 2013
@ IDC HPC User Forum, Boston, MA
Image from
http://www.nas.nasa.gov/quantum/quantumcomp.html

2. What I’m going to talk about
1. What we are doing (& why)
2. The machines
3. What the machines do
2 © Copyright 2013 D-Wave Systems Inc.

3. Quantum computation … will be the first
technology that allows useful tasks to be
performed in collaboration between
parallel universes.
David Deutsch @ TED 2005
Image from
http://conferences.ted.com/TEDGlobal2010/program/3 © Copyright 2013 D-Wave Systems Inc.

4. … quantum computers … can solve
problems whose solution will never be
feasible on a conventional computer.
Quantum computing for everyone
Michael Nielsen (2008)
http://michaelnielsen.org/blog/quantum-computing-for-everyone/
Image from http://www.longexposure.ca/2011/03/tedx-waterloo-the-uncharted/4 © Copyright 2013 D-Wave Systems Inc.

5. II. The machines
5 © Copyright 2013 D-Wave Systems Inc.

6. 6 © Copyright 2013 D-Wave Systems Inc.

7. Footprint
• ~ 200 square feet
• Closed cycle fridge
• Consumes ~ 15 kW
7 © Copyright 2013 D-Wave Systems Inc.

8. Processor environment
• 168 lines from room
temperature to processor
• 10 kg of metal at 20
milliKelvin
• 1 nanoTesla in 3D across
processor; 50,000x less than
earth’s magnetic field
2.725 K 8 © Copyright 2013 D-Wave Systems Inc.

9. 9 © Copyright 2013 D-Wave Systems Inc.

10. What is a quantum computer
•dfd
10 © Copyright 2013 D-Wave Systems Inc.

11. Fabrication cross-section
© Copyright 2011 D-Wave Systems Inc.
BASE
WIRA
WIRB
WIRC
Resistor
VIA
SiO2
SiO2
WIRD
WIRE
Junction
11 © Copyright 2013 D-Wave Systems Inc.
One of very few processes in the world capable of
fabricating VLSI superconducting processors

12. The evolution of an idea
Processor evolution overview available at
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6VIAL8gQRTI12 © Copyright 2013 D-Wave Systems Inc.
442 qubits
509 qubits

13. III. What the machines do
13 © Copyright 2013 D-Wave Systems Inc.

14. 14 © Copyright 2013 D-Wave Systems Inc.
Program real numbers on a graph, draw samples

15. 15 © Copyright 2013 D-Wave Systems Inc.
Program real numbers on a graph, draw samples
sk  [-1, +1]

16. 16 © Copyright 2013 D-Wave Systems Inc.
Program real numbers on a graph, draw samples
sk  [-1, +1]
𝒔 = +𝟏, −𝟏, +𝟏, +𝟏, −𝟏, +𝟏, −𝟏, −𝟏

17. 17 © Copyright 2013 D-Wave Systems Inc.
Program real numbers on a graph
h1
J15

18. 18 © Copyright 2013 D-Wave Systems Inc.
Program real numbers on a graph
    

N
j
ji
Eji
ijjjN ssJshss
1 ,
1 ,,
h1
J15
sk  [-1, +1]

19. 19 © Copyright 2013 D-Wave Systems Inc.
Program real numbers on a graph
    

N
j
ji
Eji
ijjjN ssJshss
1 ,
1 ,,
h1
J15
sk  [-1, +1]
Ising model
AKA
QUBO
AKA
Weighted Max2SAT

20. 20 © Copyright 2010 D-Wave Systems Inc.
A simple example
    

3
1
321 ,,
j
ji
ji
ijjj ssJshsss
h J
h1= +1.0 J12= - 1.0
h2= - 1.0 J13= - 0.5
h3= 0 J23= +0.3
h1
h2
h3
J12
J13
J23
s1
s2 s3

21. 21 © Copyright 2010 D-Wave Systems Inc.
s1 s2 s3 
-1 -1 -1 -1.2
-1 -1 +1 -0.8
-1 +1 -1 -1.8
-1 +1 +1 -0.2
+1 -1 -1 3.8
+1 -1 +1 2.2
+1 +1 -1 -0.8
+1 +1 +1 -1.2
Notation: +1 = , -1 = 
    

3
1
321 ,,
j
ji
ji
ijjj ssJshsss

22. 22 © Copyright 2013 D-Wave Systems Inc.
Program real numbers on a graph, draw samples
    

N
j
ji
Eji
ijjjN ssJshss
1 ,
1 ,,
h1
J15
sk  [-1, +1]
    Ts
Z
sP /exp
1 


23. 23 © Copyright 2010 D-Wave Systems Inc.
    Ts
Z
sP /exp
1 


24. 24 © Copyright 2013 D-Wave Systems Inc.
Programmable processor devices
Two types: qubits and couplers
s1 s5
h1 h5
J15

25. 25 © Copyright 2013 D-Wave Systems Inc.
Machine language programming
    

N
j
ji
Eji
ijjjN ssJshss
1 ,
1 ,,
Optimization Hardware
Variables sj = ±1 Qubits j
z
Linear terms hj Qubit biases hj
Quadratic terms Jij Coupler biases Jij
Allowed edge set E Locations of couplers between qubits
Objective function values (s1,…,sN) Allowed energy eigenvalues E
1 ,
N
z z z
P j j ij i j
j i j E
H h J  
 
  

26. Quantum annealing
Start with all qubits in superposition
26 © Copyright 2013 D-Wave Systems Inc.
s3s2 s4s1
s7s6 s8s5
All 28 states equally
likely

27. 27 © Copyright 2013 D-Wave Systems Inc.
Quantum annealing
Turn down superposition, turn up {h, J}

28. 28 © Copyright 2013 D-Wave Systems Inc.
Vesuvius SR10-V6
500 qubits, 1,472 couplers

29. 29 © Copyright 2012 D-Wave Systems Inc.
Duty cycle for Vesuvius
Step 1. Program {h, J} into hardware
• About 50ms
Step 2. Quantum anneal
• About 20 microseconds
Step 3. Measure qubits (draw a sample)
• About 100 microseconds
Step 4. Repeat 2-3 to gather N samples
~ 50 ms for 1 sample, ~ 1.2 s for 10,000 samples

30. 30 © Copyright 2013 D-Wave Systems Inc.
A quantum Boltzmann-like machine
Program real numbers on a graph, draw samples
    

N
j
ji
Eji
ijjjN ssJshss
1 ,
1 ,,
h1
J15
sk  [-1, +1]
    Ts
Z
sP /exp
1 


31. 31 © Copyright 2013 D-Wave Systems Inc.
There’s a fascinating hypothesis that a lot
of human perception … can be explained
by a single learning algorithm.
Unsupervised Feature Learning and Deep Learning
Andrew Ng (2011)
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=I56UugZ_8DI
Image from
http://coursera.com

32. rose@dwavesys.com
32 © Copyright 2013 D-Wave Systems Inc.

33. Program real numbers on a graph, draw samples
s3s2 s4s1
s7s6 s8s5
s3s2 s4s1
s7s6 s8s5