Random quantum circuit easiest way to beat classical computer

Enlarge / The evolution of a chaotic quantum system. (credit: Joint Quantum Institute)

One of the near-term (but somewhat irrelevant) goals of quantum computing is something called quantum supremacy. Quantum supremacy is not, sadly, a cage fight between proponents of competing interpretations of quantum mechanics. It is a demonstration of a quantum computer performing a computation, no matter how trivial, that cannot be performed on a classical computer.

The key question: what computation should be performed? A team of researchers is suggesting that computing the state of a random quantum circuit that exhibits chaotic behavior would be perfect for the task. Let's delve into why that might be.

Getting all superior

The idea of quantum supremacy goes a bit like this. Yes, we have all of these different versions of quantum computing. And yes, they all seem to behave how we expect a quantum computer to behave. But they are all remarkably slow and can easily be beaten by classical computers.

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