Original title: completing the 10000 year task of classic computer in 200 seconds, Google realizes' quantum hegemony '
In a paper published in the British journal Nature on October 23, Google demonstrated quantum hegemony - a programmable quantum computer surpassing the fastest classical supercomputer. The quantum system only takes about 200 seconds to complete the task that the classical computer takes about 10000 years to complete. The review article called this achievement a major milestone in quantum computing.
One goal of quantum computing is to perform specific computing tasks at an exponential multiple faster than traditional classical computers. To achieve this goal, we need to overcome many challenges, such as ensuring low computational error rate while generating large computing space, and designing a benchmark that is difficult for classical computers but can be easily completed by quantum computers.
The research team of Google AI quantum and the University of California Santa Barbara described the technological progress made in realizing quantum hegemony. They have developed a processor composed of 54 qubits. The computing space realized by quantum superposition and quantum entanglement is exponentially increased compared with that achieved by classical bits. Since one qubit cannot work effectively, the processor actually uses only 53 qubits.
The error correction process developed by the research team can ensure high computational fidelity (up to 99.99%). In order to test the system, the team designed a task of sampling random numbers generated by quantum circuits. For classical computers, the difficulty of this task will increase with the increase of the number of qubits in quantum circuits. Finally, the quantum processor collects 1 million samples from the quantum circuit in about 200 seconds, and a cutting-edge supercomputer takes about 10000 years to complete this task.
In the 'news and views' article published at the same time, scientists commented that' for the world's leading supercomputer & hellip& hellip; Realizing quantum hegemony is undoubtedly a great achievement. ". However, the article also points out that more work needs to be done before quantum computers are put into practical application, such as realizing sustainable fault-tolerant computing.