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Google: We've achieved quantum supremacy! IBM: Nope. And stop using that word, please

posted by takyon on Wednesday October 23 2019, @09:15AM   
from the low-lying-qubits dept.

"exec" writes:

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."

IBM blog post.

Previously:

IBM and Google’s Race for Quantum Computing Takes a Mysterious Turn
Google Quantum Processor Reportedly Achieves Quantum Supremacy

-- submitted from IRC

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Original Submission

• Re:Of all algorithms that gain from QC... Re:Of all algorithms that gain from QC... (Score: 3, Insightful) by FatPhil on Wednesday October 23 2019, @04:37PM (1 child)

  by FatPhil (863) <reversethis-{if.fdsa} {ta} {tnelyos-cp}> on Wednesday October 23 2019, @04:37PM (#910858) Homepage

  Are those quantum computation or quantum annealing? The two are quite different (see past D-Wave discussions). However, if the latter, it is a problem type that is quite suited to the quantum domain, hence the existence of D-Wave.

  --
  Great minds discuss ideas; average minds discuss events; small minds discuss people; the smallest discuss themselves

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• Re:Of all algorithms that gain from QC... (Score: 2) by stormwyrm on Thursday October 24 2019, @02:51AM

  by stormwyrm (717) on Thursday October 24 2019, @02:51AM (#911091) Journal

  Basically it'd be true quantum computation, as you'd be using qubits, which are themselves quantum particles, to simulate the behaviour of some other quantum particles. With 53 qubits it would be possible to make detailed simulations for the behaviour of the electrons in an iodine atom, or perhaps the behaviour of the protons and neutrons in a Chromium-53 nucleus, or some other quantum system with 53 or less particles. As I said, thanks to entanglement, there is an exponential growth in the possible number of states of such quantum systems as the number of particles grows, so this kind of problem rapidly becomes infeasible for a classical computer. I think they set 53 as the number for "quantum supremacy" because this is the point at which it is no longer feasible for even the most powerful of today's classical computers to do the same calculations.

  --
  Numquam ponenda est pluralitas sine necessitate.

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