It's exactly the sort of futuristic thinking you'd expect
from Google and NASA: Late last week, the organizations announced a partnership
to build a Quantum Artificial Intelligence Lab at NASA's Ames Research Center.
But questions surround the new type of computer at the lab's
core. D-Wave systems, the company that makes the machine, says it is a quantum
computer — a machine that runs on the strange laws of quantum mechanics. But
although the computer can solve a certain type of problem much faster than
conventional computers, critics say that the company's claims are not supported
by scientific evidence.