Quantum Supremacy? Google Claims 70-Qubit Quantum Supercomputer

Google says it would take the world's leading supercomputer more than 47 years to match the calculation speed of its newest quantum computer, reports the Telegraph:Four years ago, Google claimed to be the first company to achieve "quantum supremacy" - a milestone point at which quantum computers surpass existing machines. This was challenged at the time by rivals, which argued that Google was exaggerating the difference between its machine and traditional supercomputers. The company's new paper - Phase Transition in Random Circuit Sampling - published on the open access science website ArXiv, demonstrates a more powerful device that aims to end the debate. While [Google's] 2019 machine had 53 qubits, the building blocks of quantum computers, the next generation device has 70. Adding more qubits improves a quantum computer's power exponentially, meaning the new machine is 241 million times more powerful than the 2019 machine... Steve Brierley, the chief executive of Cambridge-based quantum company Riverlane, said: "This is a major milestone. The squabbling about whether we had reached, or indeed could reach, quantum supremacy is now resolved." Thanks to long-time Slashdot reader schwit1 for sharing the article.

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