The paper below and the news story based on it describe a new form of computation based on what they call environment-assisted quantum transport (ENAQT).
ENAQT involves a combination of quantum and classical effects at room temperature.
The paper says:"Current computers operate with about 4 GHz processors, where the cycle time of logical operations is 250 picoseconds. Computers based on arti cial light harvesting complexes could have units with 100-1000 times larger eciency at room temperature. But, it is also possible to realize such systems on excitons of organic molecules or on Hamiltonians arising in nuclear matter, which would provide a virtually endless source of improvement both in time and miniaturization below the atomic scale."
Evolutionary Design in Biological Quantum Computing, Gabor Vattay, Stuart A. Kauffman http://arxiv.org/abs/1311.4688
I know next to nothing about quantum computers or complexity-theory. Am I right in thinking that ENAQT computation is theoretically slower than quantum computers as heretofore conceived but faster than classical computers?
Will terms such a qubit, quantum-information and quantum complexity-classes need new ENAQT counterparts (ENAQTbit, B-ENAQT-P instead of BQP etc) or will the existing quantum versions be sufficient for describing ENAQT computation?
