"What we're doing is a parallel development to the kind of computing we've had for the past 70 years," said Vern Brownell, D-Wave's chief executive.
Of course, it really depends on the kind of computing you do, and where you do it.
The kind of computing infrastructure needed to run a global service like Facebook isn't cheap, and somebody has to pay for it.
Truly great computing, is the kind of computing that has become so fundamental to people's existences, that they no longer think of it as 'computing', at all (even though it often requires some of the most powerful and reliable computing in the world, to actually pull it off): the ATM network, for instance.
The conclusion drawn is that the hybrid approach is the most suitable for the parallelization of AND for this kind of computing platforms.
What's the benefit for this kind of computing?
In addition to new kinds of computing applications, Mr. Rattner said that the so-called network-on-chip Teraflop processor would be ideal for the kind of heterogeneous computing that is increasingly common in the corporate world.
And although today's personal computers offer the kind of reliability that only Tandem could offer 20 years ago, he said, businesses placing critical processes on line have an ever-increasing need for the kind of nonstop computing that the company specializes in.
For the kind of distributed compute and batch workloads that can failover when one machine goes down, though, preemptible machines can offer significant cost savings.
Even the nation's elite universities do not provide the technical training needed for the kind of powerful and highly complex computing Google is famous for, say computer scientists.
Hyperscale cloud platforms from the likes of Amazon, Microsoft and Google are great for running the kind of high-performance computing (HPC) projects that scientists in academia and the industry need for their simulations and analyses.
