D-Wave quantum computer appears to run faster than classical model

New Scientist : Canada’s D-Wave Systems , which sells what purport to be the world’s first quantum computers, says its latest model is 15 times faster than a regular PC. However, that claim has been disputed by various experts. One issue is the nature of the test. The D-Wave computer was tasked with solving a random optimization problem, which it was able to do in 20 microseconds. The regular computers took longer to find a solution “of equivalent quality.” But although the D-Wave computer found more solutions faster than the regular computers, it may not necessarily be faster at coming up with the best solution. Another issue is that classical computers use multiple cores to split up the computations and speed up the processing time. But the test PC used just a single core. Perhaps the best way to prove D-Wave’s computers are truly quantum is to have them show progressively faster performance on ever-larger problems, which hasn’t happened yet.