Re:Google's top quantum scientist explains why he resigned
by mleonhard on Friday May 01, 2020 @05:21PM
(#23046634)
Yes. People usually leave jobs because their boss doesn't meet their needs. Hartmut hired Martinis to be a manager and then didn't give him authority to do his job. Martinis tells how he had several meetings with Hartmut about this problem but nothing was done. It's clear to me that Hartmut failed in his role.
Re:Google's top quantum scientist explains why he resigned
by jl2718 on Friday May 08, 2020 @11:34AM
(#23115924)
Yes, we built an IC just for the wiring. I think I have a guess at what the argument was about, essentially expert heuristics versus learned optimization. It's been my experience with Google on other RF projects that they prefer naïveté versus expertise. This was explained to me as advantageous for scaling teams and minimizing technical debt, which actually makes sense.
Also, don't underestimate wiring in a quantum computer. I don't know the details of Google's system but Quantum computers uses analog RF pulses to interact with the Qubit system which are then later digitized. The design of a wiring system in a Quantum computer is similar to what you would see designing a high end phased array radar system with the need for everything to be phase matched, highly stable, and temperature controlled except that a quantum computer is also extremely susceptible to cross talk at the interfaces. Wiring a system of Google's scale can easily run into the $100k+ range in just material and manufacturing costs. If the other person didn't have any experimental experience like Martinis says, then he would almost certainly run into problems.