Google and NASA's Quantum Artificial Intelligence Lab

It's really strange to discuss putting weights of importance on topics you (and I) are tangibly quantify. I'm not even sure how anyone justifies claiming MS or Google research is _inferior_ to the other's. If we have that much insight into what is superior, then surely we've already won and know where to throw our bucks? Regardless, Google already does plenty of work in these fields. This year, they've expanded to partnerships with NASA, USRA, and D-Wave with a new AI Lab -- [VIDEO] .

Google also released a video[1] describing their joint investment in a D-Wave "quantum computer" (given the debates I've left it in quotes) with NASA. It talks about some cool potential applications and attempts to break down the very basics. What I'm wondering is if the investments into quantum computing by Google is merely them sinking left over R&D cash or if they believe that powerful quantum computers can be achieved relatively soon? 1 - [VIDEO]

Here is another article today bashing the D-Wave Two computers: [LINK] These machines are testing a completely new computing concept. We're trying to learn how they work so that we can apply that to building machines that can actually outperform traditional computers, and once that's achieved then the potential benefit will be enormous. According to [LINK] as you scale up qubits the power demands do not increase. That alone has huge potential. Maybe new materials need to be developed to see the full potential of these computers, lots of research needs to be done. Why are all of these articles so pessimistic? NASA, Lockheed, and Google purchasing these multi-million dollar machines should indicate that there is at-least some potential and value in the D-Wave computers, even if in the end they just learn what D-Wave did wrong. [VIDEO] "We don't know the best questions to ask the quantum computers, that's what we're trying to find out now."