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One step closer to SkyNet: Google Confirms Achieving Quantum Supremacy


Muda69

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https://gizmodo.com/google-confirms-achieving-quantum-supremacy-1839288099

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This morning, Google scientists confirmed in a blog post that their quantum computer had needed just 200 seconds to solve a problem that they claim would take the world’s fastest supercomputer 10,000 years to complete.

The team first ran the algorithm last spring using a 54-qubit processor called “Sycamore.” While the achievement is called quantum supremacy, it doesn’t mean that quantum computers are suddenly more capable than classical computers, since Google’s quantum computer only beat the competition at a single, highly contrived problem. Quantum computers with day-to-day applications may still be decades away, but this is an important scientific milestone when comparing quantum computers to their classical counterpart.

“For such large-scale endeavors it is good engineering practice to formulate decisive short-term goals that demonstrate whether the designs are going in the right direction,” Google’s John Martinis and Sergio Boxio, chief scientists of quantum hardware and quantum computing theory, wrote in the blog post. “So, we devised an experiment as an important milestone to help answer these questions.”

Quantum computers are a new kind of computing device that could one day be capable of solving problems that classical computers can’t. Instead of series of transistors linked together, representing two-choice bits like in classical computers, their base unit is the quantum bit, or qubit, a piece of hardware that mimics the behavior of a subatomic particle. Qubits communicate via the probability-driven theory of quantum mechanics instead of the regular rules of logic. They’re still two-choice systems that output binary code, but getting to the answer incorporates the quantum mathematical ideas of entanglement, superposition, and interference. This new architecture may one day excel at simulating the behavior of subatomic particles well enough to create new medicines and new materials. It might also be able to crack the code that modern-day encryption is based on.

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I for one will welcome our Quantum Computer overlords...................

 

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8 hours ago, Muda69 said:

https://gizmodo.com/google-confirms-achieving-quantum-supremacy-1839288099

I for one will welcome our Quantum Computer overlords...................

 

I loved the "dis" response from IBM (the presumed owners of the "supercomputer" mentioned in Google's press release): IBM pooh-poohed the 10,000 years number and said that, with unlimited access to disc space, their supercomputer could do the computation in just "two and a half days."

Two and a half days. To do a computation that Google's computer did in 3 minutes.  

Atta boy, Watson, you really showed 'em. 

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