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Google Claims ‘Quantum Supremacy,’ Marking a Major Milestone in Computing
By Robert Hackett

September 20, 2019

In what may be a huge milestone in computing, Google says it has achieved "quantum supremacy," an experimental demonstration of the superiority of a quantum computer over a traditional one.

The claim, made in a new scientific paper, is the most serious indication yet that the promise of quantum computers—an emerging but unproven type of machine—is becoming reality, including their potential to solve formerly ungraspable mathematical problems.

Essentially, Google purports to have pulled off a stunt on a quantum computer that no classical machine—not even the world's most powerful supercomputer—can replicate.

Fortune obtained a copy of Google's paper, which was posted to NASA.gov earlier this week before being taken down. The Financial Times first reported the news.

A Google spokesperson declined to confirm the authenticity of the paper and its results. NASA did not respond immediately to a request for comment.

A source at Google familiar with the situation suggested, however, that NASA accidentally published the paper early, before its team's claims could be thoroughly vetted through scientific peer review, a process that could take anywhere from weeks to months.

If the paper holds up under the scrutiny of the scientific community, it will herald a watershed moment in quantum science. Its central claim counters doubt that some unforeseen law of nature may prevent quantum computers from operating as hoped.

"Quantum speedup is achievable in a real-world system and is not precluded by any hidden physical laws," the Google researchers write.

Further, they predict that quantum computing power will "grow at a double exponential rate," besting even the exponential rate that defined Moore's Law, a trend that observed traditional computing power to double roughly every two years.
The experiment

The experiment described in the paper sampled randomly generated numbers produced through a specialized scenario involving quantum phenomena. The researchers said they determined that their quantum computer beat regular computers at the task, which involved calculating the output of certain specialized circuits.

"While our processor takes about 200 seconds to sample one instance of the quantum circuit 1 million times, a state-of-the-art supercomputer would require approximately 10,000 years to perform the equivalent task," the researchers said.

Google's quantum computer, dubbed "Sycamore," contained 53-qubits, or "quantum bits," a measure of the machine's potential power. The team scaled back from a 72-qubit device, dubbed "Bristlecone," it had previously designed.

The researchers estimate that performing the same experiment on a Google Cloud server would take 50 trillion hours—too long to be feasible. On the quantum processor, it took only 30 seconds, they said.

"Quantum processors based on superconducting qubits can now perform computations...beyond the reach of the fastest classical supercomputers available today," the researchers write. "To our knowledge, this experiment marks the first computation that can only be performed on a quantum processor."
Outlook

Businesses are hoping the advancement of quantum computers—by tech giants such as Google, IBM, and Intel, as well as startups such as Rigetti Computing—will lead to unprecedented scientific and technical breakthroughs in the coming years. They're eyeing applications from new chemical reactions for the development of drugs, fertilizers, and batteries, to the improvement of optimization algorithms and mathematical modeling.

As exciting as Google's result is, other researchers caution against overhyping it, fearing that inflated expectations of imminent advances will lead to a popped bubble.

Dario Gil, head of IBM Research, advises against using quantum supremacy as a metric with which to measure progress in the field. "The experiment and the 'supremacy' term will be misunderstood by nearly all," he told Fortune.

Gil described the experiment as a highly special case "laboratory experiment" that has "no practical applications." He added, "Quantum computers will never reign 'supreme' over classical computers, but will rather work in concert with them, since each have their unique strengths."

Jim Clarke, Intel Labs' director of quantum hardware, called Google's update "a notable mile marker." He said that "a commercially viable quantum computer will require" many R&D advancements before becoming a reality.

"While development is still at mile one of this marathon, we strongly believe in the potential of this technology," Clarke added.

The Google team, which first wrote about their goal in a Nature article two years ago, appears to be more hopeful about the short-term prospects of its findings. "As a result of these developments, quantum computing is transitioning from a research topic to a technology that unlocks new computational capabilities," the researchers write.

"We are only one creative algorithm away from valuable near-term applications."

Interesting article. Such a large leap of computing power. Just think what google could do with that

The new phonebooks are here!! The new phonebooks are here!!

I'm gonna call my QC "Navin".

quote:

Originally posted by cruiser68:
Interesting article. Such a large leap of computing power. Just think what google could do with that

That's not really how it works. Quantum computers can't just magically do any computation a billion times faster than a normal computer.

Under the usual assumptions about how quantum computers work, which this paper might confirm, there are some problems that can be solved much faster on a quantum computer. This property, under those assumptions, has only been proven for a small number of problems so far.

Sounds like an interesting technology development. However, if they decide to call it "Skynet" or "HAL", we're all in a lot of trouble!

quote:

Originally posted by cruiser68:
Just think what google could do with that

Scary, isn’t it?

My kids will be able to watch Netflix a billion times faster? Sweet!

And your previously secure information, communication, banking transactions are now no longer secure.

quote:

Originally posted by maladat:

quote:

Originally posted by cruiser68:
Interesting article. Such a large leap of computing power. Just think what google could do with that

That's not really how it works. Quantum computers can't just magically do any computation a billion times faster than a normal computer.

Under the usual assumptions about how quantum computers work, which this paper might confirm, there are some problems that can be solved much faster on a quantum computer. This property, under those assumptions, has only been proven for a small number of problems so far.

A solution in search of a problem, so to speak?

“Quantum computers are almost here.”
Ranks right up there with:
“A cure for cancer is almost here.”

I’ll believe it when a quantum computer beats alphago at the board game.

quote:

Originally posted by Pipe Smoker:
“Quantum computers are almost here.”
Ranks right up there with:
“A cure for cancer is almost here.”

I’ll believe it when a quantum computer beats alphago at the board game.

Don't forget that cheap electrical power from nuclear fusion is only 30 years away ...


Funny how it was only 30 years away when I was a kid in the 60's.

quote:

Originally posted by parabellum:
The new phonebooks are here!! The new phonebooks are here!!

Excellent!

Funny stuff para, great reference

They've actually been here for years, we just can't see them yet.

quote:

Originally posted by Pipe Smoker:
“Quantum computers are almost here.”
Ranks right up there with:
“A cure for cancer is almost here.”

I’ll believe it when a quantum computer beats alphago at the board game.

IBM has one that you can use from the web.

You'll likely never have a quantum computer sitting on your desk or in your pocket, because the types of computing a quantum computer does isn't what you do every day.
In very simple terms, a quantum computer tries every possible combination of a problem simultaneously. Whereas a binary computer can only try 1 iteration at a time (Using cores/threads can up that).
For 'processing' data, a traditional computer will probably be more efficient (there are some types of processing that it won't be). Quantum processing will be for very specific 'we don't know what we're looking for' problems - like modeling a brain, for example. It will find solutions that satisfy a complex problem, then you test those solutions & see which on matches real life the best.
Google could use (or misuse) it to look for relationships in huge data sets - and we know they have the data.

quote:

Originally posted by snidera:
In very simple terms, a quantum computer tries every possible combination of a problem simultaneously. Whereas a binary computer can only try 1 iteration at a time (Using cores/threads can up that).

This is how quantum computers are commonly described in media pop science articles, but it isn't actually true. Quantum computers are substantially less computationally powerful than this statement would indicate.

Great, now we'll need Gigabit encryption.

I did base my enthusiasm on what "Sci-Fiction" books I had read... Seems a lot of Sci-Fi books of the past either predicted or predicated what is current.

From the article above. Maybe bullshit perhaps fact.

"While our processor takes about 200 seconds to sample one instance of the quantum circuit 1 million times, a state-of-the-art supercomputer would require approximately 10,000 years to perform the equivalent task," the researchers said."

Just saying, there are many specific things that should be in it's capability when and If it comes to be fact. Like encryption codes.

quote:

Originally posted by Fla. Jim:
I did base my enthusiasm on what "Sci-Fiction" books I had read... Seems a lot of Sci-Fi books of the past either predicted or predicated what is current.

From the article above. Maybe bullshit perhaps fact.

"While our processor takes about 200 seconds to sample one instance of the quantum circuit 1 million times, a state-of-the-art supercomputer would require approximately 10,000 years to perform the equivalent task," the researchers said."

Just saying, there are many specific things that should be in it's capability when and If it comes to be fact. Like encryption codes.

Just because a quantum computer can solve one specific problem much faster than classical computers doesn't mean they can solve EVERY problem much faster. Thus far, there is a relatively small group of problems that have been shown to (potentially) be in this category.

One of those algorithms does, for a quantum computer with enough qubits, render certain encryption algorithms like RSA practically useless. But RSA is already known to be a pretty bad encryption algorithm.

Other algorithms are much less susceptible to decryption by quantum computers. The best quantum algorithm known for attacking AES encryption would make it easier to crack, but still not really feasible for key sizes of 256 bits or more.

There is compelling evidence that encryption algorithms for classical computers can be developed that are not susceptible to attack by either classical computers or quantum computers, and such algorithms are under development and being standardized by various organizations.

Here's a short semi-technical article I found on the subject:

https://techbeacon.com/securit...-nothing-worry-about