An interesting if somewhat confounding article:

Google takes quantum leap into artificial intelligence

The claim is here made that Googles “D-Wave” quantum computer is “100 million times as fast as any of today’s machines.” Which would be both great and impressive, but the article also says “each 10-foot-high D-Wave computer also needs to be super-chilled to a temperature that’s 150 times as cold as that of deep space.” What the hell temperature is *that,* given that deep space has no temperature, being deep space and all? And even if you compared the temperature to something measurable like, say, the freezing point of water, what does it mean to be “150 times colder?” Is something that’s 150 times colder than 0 degrees Celsius the same temperature as something that’s 150 times colder than 32 degree Fahrenheit? Hmmm.

A truly functional quantum computer that has all the kinks worked out, bugs swept out and Heisencats  shooed off would be a dandy device. This would seem to be a computer within shooting distance of the approximate power of the human brain. So it *might* turn out that the first true AIs aren’t digital computers, but quantum. And Loki only knows what sort of wacky insanity *that* might produce.