Google talks about quantum supremacy again. This computer broke the record by 47 years

Google has been working on its quantum computer for many years, trying to prove that such a machine has significant advantages over traditional supercomputers. The quantum machine not only takes up much less space and consumes less energy, but above all, it can perform complex calculations on an ongoing basis, which would take centuries for devices based on the classical binary system.

A quantum computer beats the fastest machine by 47 years

To prove the huge gulf between quantum and conventional computing, researchers working for Google used the company’s still-developing machine. Researchers put to work equipment equipped with the latest 70-qubit quantum processor. A qubit is the smallest and indivisible unit carrying quantum information, on which the principle of operation of these computers is based. A qubit can be in a superposition of two quantum states – before the measurement it can be in the 0 and 1 state at the same time (or anywhere in between), and only at the moment of the measurement it defines its value. It carries much more information than the classic bit, and a computer using a quantum processor can perform many calculations at the same time.

Researchers decided to use the Google machine to test the reading speed of randomly generated quantum processes. The machine made the calculations immediately. They then assigned the same task to a quantum computer equipped with an older Sycamore processor with 53 qubits. In this case, the machine has already taken a few seconds to calculate. Finally, a simulation was performed, consisting in transferring the task to the most powerful classic supercomputer in the world today (it is called Frontier and is located in the USA). It turned out that the latter machine would need 47 years of uninterrupted work to perform the calculations. The study has so far appeared in the arXiv archive, but has not yet been peer-reviewed.

Google is building a quantum computer photo Google

Google: We have achieved quantum supremacy

According to researchers from Google, however, this is another proof that the company has achieved the quantum supremacy it has been waiting for for years. This is the state in the development of quantum computers when they are able to efficiently solve problems that the fastest classical computer would not be able to solve in any reasonable time. Interestingly, this is the second time that Google claims so – similar declarations. At that time, the company’s researchers performed a very similar experiment, but they used the already mentioned older quantum processor with 53 qubits. It has been calculated that to solve the problem, which then took a quantum machine 200 seconds, the most modern supercomputers would need as much as 10,000 hours. years.

Although research on quantum computers has been going on since the 1980s, still none of the companies or research institutions has built a machine that could be used in practice. However, work is constantly being carried out, and apart from Google in this field r Still a big problem is the sensitivity of qubits to uncontrolled “falling out” of superposition under the influence of external conditions. Quantum computers also have too few of them to provide the expected performance. This one is growing exponentially, with the increase in the number of qubits, they will turn out to be a real revolution.