Lifeboat Foundation: Safeguarding Humanity
Toggle light / dark theme

Blog

Category: supercomputing – Page 29

The concept of a computational consciousness and the potential impact it may have on humanity is a topic of ongoing debate and speculation. While Artificial Intelligence (AI) has made significant advancements in recent years, we have not yet achieved a true computational consciousness that can replicate the complexities of the human mind.

It is true that AI technologies are becoming more sophisticated and capable of performing tasks that were previously exclusive to human intelligence. However, there are fundamental differences between Artificial Intelligence and human consciousness. Human consciousness is not solely based on computation; it encompasses emotions, subjective experiences, self-awareness, and other aspects that are not yet fully understood or replicated in machines.

The arrival of advanced AI systems could certainly have transformative effects on society and our understanding of humanity. It may reshape various aspects of our lives, from how we work and communicate to how we approach healthcare and scientific discoveries. AI can enhance our capabilities and provide valuable tools for solving complex problems.

Continue reading “AI and Humanity’s Future” | >

Undeterred after three decades of looking, and with some assistance from a supercomputer, mathematicians have finally discovered a new example of a special integer called a Dedekind number.

Only the ninth of its kind, or D, it is calculated to equal 286 386 577 668 298 411 128 469 151 667 598 498 812 366, if you’re updating your own records. This 42 digit monster follows the 23-digit D discovered in 1991.

Grasping the concept of a Dedekind number is difficult for non-mathematicians, let alone working it out. In fact, the calculations involved are so complex and involve such huge numbers, it wasn’t certain that D would ever be discovered.

Read more | >

The first eight Dedekind numbers have been known to us, but the ninth one has remained elusive — until now.

Mathematics is a fascinating subject with many unsolved mysteries, such as the Riemann hypothesis, Fermat’s last theorem, Goldbach’s conjecture, and Dedekind’s numbers. The Dedekind numbers were first discovered in the 19th century by Richard Dedekind and have interested mathematicians ever since.

The first eight Dedekind numbers have been known to us, but the ninth one has remained elusive until now. KU Leuven and Paderborn University scientists have solved a decades-old mathematics problem by computing the ninth Dedekind number.

Read more | >

Quantum computing could revolutionize our world. For specific and crucial tasks, it promises to be exponentially faster than the zero-or-one binary technology that underlies today’s machines, from supercomputers in laboratories to smartphones in our pockets. But developing quantum computers hinges on building a stable network of qubits—or quantum bits—to store information, access it and perform computations.

Yet the qubit platforms unveiled to date have a common problem: They tend to be delicate and vulnerable to outside disturbances. Even a stray photon can cause trouble. Developing fault-tolerant qubits—which would be immune to external perturbations—could be the ultimate solution to this challenge.

A team led by scientists and engineers at the University of Washington has announced a significant advancement in this quest. In a pair of papers published June 14 in Nature and June 22 in Science, the researchers report that in experiments with flakes of semiconductor materials—each only a single layer of atoms thick—they detected signatures of “fractional quantum anomalous Hall” (FQAH) states.

Read more | >

Making history with 42 digits, scientists at Paderborn University and KU Leuven have unlocked a decades-old mystery of mathematics with the so-called ninth Dedekind number.

Experts worldwide have been searching for the value since 1991. The Paderborn scientists arrived at the exact sequence of numbers with the help of the Noctua supercomputer located there. The results will be presented in September at the International Workshop on Boolean Functions and their Applications (BFA) in Norway.

What started as a master’s thesis project by Lennart Van Hirtum, then a computer science student at KU Leuven and now a research associate at the University of Paderborn, has become a huge success. The scientists join an illustrious group with their work. Earlier numbers in the series were found by mathematician Richard Dedekind himself when he defined the problem in 1,897, and later by greats of early computer science such as Randolph Church and Morgan Ward. “For 32 years, the calculation of D was an open challenge, and it was questionable whether it would ever be possible to calculate this number at all,” Van Hirtum says.

Read more | >

Tesla says its long-awaited Dojo supercomputer, which is supposed to bring its self-driving effort to a new level, is finally going into production next month.

Dojo is Tesla’s own custom supercomputer platform built from the ground up for AI machine learning and, more specifically, for video training using the video data coming from its fleet of vehicles.

The automaker already has a large NVIDIA GPU-based supercomputer that is one of the most powerful in the world, but the new Dojo custom-built computer uses chips and an entire infrastructure designed by Tesla.

Read more | >

O.o!!!! Year 2022

A new photonic quantum computer takes just 36 microseconds to perform a task that would take a conventional supercomputer more than 9,000 years to complete. The new device, named Borealis, is the first quantum computer from a startup to display such “quantum advantage” over regular computers. Borealis is also the first machine capable of quantum advantage to be made available to the public over the cloud.

Quantum computers can theoretically achieve a quantum advantage that enables them to find the answers to problems no classical computers could ever solve. The more components known as qubits that a quantum computer has, the greater its computational power can grow, in an exponential fashion.

Many companies, including giants such as Google, IBM, and Amazon as well as startups such as IonQ, rely on qubits based on superconducting circuits or trapped ions. One drawback with these approaches is that they both demand temperatures colder than those found in deep space, because heat can disrupt the qubits. The expensive, bulky cryogenic systems required to hold qubits at such frigid temperatures can also make it a major challenge to scale these platforms up to high numbers of qubits—or to smaller and more portable form factors.

Continue reading “Photonic Quantum Computer Claims Speedup “Advantage”” | >

Microsoft today announced its roadmap for building its own quantum supercomputer, using the topological qubits the company’s researchers have been working on for quite a few years now. There are still plenty of intermediary milestones to be reached, but Krysta Svore, Microsoft’s VP of advanced quantum development, told us that the company believes that it will take fewer than 10 years to build a quantum supercomputer using these qubits that will be able to perform a reliable one million quantum operations per second. That’s a new measurement Microsoft is introducing as the overall industry aims to move beyond the current era of noisy intermediate-scale quantum (NISQ) computing.

We think… More.

At its Ignite conference, Microsoft today put its stake in the ground and discussed its progress in building a quantum computer and giving developers tools to experiment with this new computing paradigm on their existing machines.

There’s a lot to untangle here, and few people will claim that they understand the details of quantum computing. What Microsoft has done, though, is focus on a different aspect of how quantum computing can work — and that may just allow it to get a jump on IBM, Google and other competitors that are also looking at this space. The main difference between what Microsoft is doing is that its system is based on advances in topology that the company previously discussed. Most of the theoretical work behind this comes from Fields Medal-recipient Michael Freedman, who joined Microsoft Research in 1997, and his team.

Continue reading “Microsoft places its bets on quantum computing” | >

They created a quantum system with properties analogous to black holes.

A collaborative effort from research teams across multiple organizations in China was successful in using quantum computing technology to test Hawking Radiation, the theory proposed by renowned physicist Stephen Hawking, the South China Morning Post.

Quantum computing is a complex field that involves using mathematics, computer science, and physics to solve complex problems. Interesting Engineering recently reported how a quantum computer recently beat a conventional supercomputer at complex math.

Read more | >