Google says it has achieved a breakthrough in quantum computing research.
It says an experimental quantum processor has completed a calculation in just a few minutes that would take a traditional supercomputer thousands of years.
The results of its study appear in the scientific journal Nature. Google says it has achieved quantum supremacy, which means the quantum computer did something a conventional computer could never do.
Competitor IBM is disputing that Google achieved the benchmark, saying Google underestimated the conventional supercomputer.
MacDailyNews Take: Quantum advantage is not quantum supremacy.
Because the original meaning of the term “quantum supremacy,” as proposed by John Preskill in 2012, was to describe the point where quantum computers can do things that classical computers can’t, this threshold has not been met. — Edwin Pednault, John Gunnels, and Jay Gambetta, IBM Research Blog, October 21, 2019
That said:
Not only is the Universe stranger than we think, it is stranger than we can think. ― Werner Heisenberg
Google’s announcement is here.
The Nature article is here.