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Arthur T Knackerbracket has found the following story:
The esoteric world of quantum computing is all aquiver following a robust blog post from IBM essentially rubbishing claims from Google that it has achieved "quantum supremacy".
The post notes that quantum computing is approaching the limits of classical simulation and there are big questions as to how to evaluate and benchmark system performance. Quantum supremacy is the moment quantum machines begin to do things classical computers cannot.
But Big Blue dismissed Google's most recent claims for its 53-qubit processor revealed in a leaked document last month.
IBM notes: "In the preprint, it is argued that their device reached 'quantum supremacy' and that 'a state-of-the-art supercomputer would require approximately 10,000 years to perform the equivalent task'. "We argue that an ideal simulation of the same task can be performed on a classical system in 2.5 days and with far greater fidelity. This is in fact a conservative, worst-case estimate, and we expect that with additional refinements, the classical cost of the simulation can be further reduced."
Previously:
IBM and Google’s Race for Quantum Computing Takes a Mysterious Turn
Google Quantum Processor Reportedly Achieves Quantum Supremacy
-- submitted from IRC
(Score: 4, Interesting) by FatPhil on Wednesday October 23 2019, @10:44AM (5 children)
So if you want to claim quantum supremacy, the easiest field for them to prove that to anyone's satisfaction would be factoring. So, google, put up or shut up - what are the factors of the RSA-1024 challenge number?
Great minds discuss ideas; average minds discuss events; small minds discuss people; the smallest discuss themselves
(Score: 2) by Mojibake Tengu on Wednesday October 23 2019, @11:27AM
There must be a reason for those challenges been retracted 12 years ago.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/RSA_numbers [wikipedia.org]
Respect Authorities. Know your social status. Woke responsibly.
(Score: 2, Funny) by c0lo on Wednesday October 23 2019, @01:01PM
Ummm... one has to ask. Does the $5 wrench attack qualifies as Quantum Supremacy? (grin)
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aoFiw2jMy-0 https://soylentnews.org/~MichaelDavidCrawford
(Score: 2) by stormwyrm on Wednesday October 23 2019, @02:16PM (2 children)
It's not just factoring that benefits from quantum computing. Molecular dynamics simulations also get a substantial speed-up from quantum computers, and this was in fact the original problem that motivated quantum computing to begin with. There seems to be an exponential explosion in complexity when you try to simulate the behaviour of quantum particles such as molecules on a classical computer (but as with NP-complete problems, there is no known mathematical proof that a quantum simulation necessarily takes O(2n) time/space on a classical computer). The idea of computationally simulating these kinds of quantum phenomena, indeed the very idea of a quantum computer, to be goes all the way back to Richard Feynman's 1981 keynote at MIT [fisica.net]. It was thirteen years later when Peter Shor noticed that it was also possible to do factoring in polynomial time with a quantum computer. So a 53-qubit quantum computer will be able to simulate the behaviour of 53 mutually interacting quantum particles, something that is infeasible with even the most powerful classical supercomputers available today. The applications of such a thing will probably not be in cryptography, but in quantum chemistry, materials science, and so on.
But yeah, "quantum supremacy" is a ridiculous term.
Numquam ponenda est pluralitas sine necessitate.
(Score: 3, Insightful) by FatPhil on Wednesday October 23 2019, @04:37PM (1 child)
Great minds discuss ideas; average minds discuss events; small minds discuss people; the smallest discuss themselves
(Score: 2) by stormwyrm on Thursday October 24 2019, @02:51AM
Numquam ponenda est pluralitas sine necessitate.