Chinese researchers claim to have developed a quantum computer that could easily outperform Google's quantum prototype by 10 billion times and the most advanced supercomputers by about 100 trillion times.
According to Bloomberg, the Chinese quantum research group led by University of Science and Technology of China Department of Modern Physics Dr. Han-Sen Zhong claimed to produce results within minutes, which could take the world's third most powerful supercomputer about 2 billion years to compute.
China Quantum Computer claims Supremacy
Chinese researchers estimated that their China quantum computer is about 100 trillion times faster than most advanced supercomputers. They published their study in the journal Science, which also challenged Google's quantum technology that was unveiled in 2019.
Quantum supremacy is described by the ability of a quantum machine to do a workload, which seems unfeasible for a conventional computer. The China's quantum computer prototype could detect up to 76 photons using a standard simulation algorithm called Gaussian boson sampling. While Google AI Quantum team first shown such a feat with their "Sycamore" quantum computer, but the Chinese breakthrough could easily out-perform it with their Photon-based computing.
The Chinese breakthrough suggests the advantage of a quantum computation, which cannot be achieved by any traditional computers within the same amount of time. The research also wrote that it is unlikely to be overturned by hardware or algorithmic improvements.
Quantum computing is believed to be crucial in improving the power and speed of computer processing. Aside from simulating large systems, it pushes for the advances in chemistry, physics, and other fields. Aside from Google, China is also competing against other major American companies like Microsoft and Amazon in developing the most advanced quantum technology.
Quantum computers are seen to be a huge help in transforming fields of artificial intelligence, health and medication, solar technology, and investment portfolios. This could also aid in the compounds and materials development for pharmaceutical companies, car manufacturers, and agriculture enterprises.
Google's computing feat
In 2019, Google's AI team developed a quantum computer prototype called "Sycamore," which gained international commendation when it publicized that it only took 3 minutes and 20 seconds to complete a calculation work that could take a supercomputer about 10,000 years to finish.
The study published in Nature journal said that the Google AI team made numerous technical advances to reach quantum supremacy. "We developed fast, high-fidelity gates that can be executed simultaneously across a two-dimensional qubit array," Google researchers wrote in the study.
They also wrote in their report that they have "calibrated and benchmarked" their Sycamore processor at both the system and component levels using the new powerful cross-entropy benchmarking tool. Meanwhile, to predict the system's performance accurately, they used component-level fidelities, which further showed that "quantum information behaves as expected" when being scaled to large systems.
The Chinese government is investing $10 billion to build its National Laboratory for Quantum Information Sciences to further boost its progress in quantum technology. Meanwhile, the U.S. has allotted $1 billion funding on quantum information and artificial intelligence research, which is believed to be triggered by Google's breakthrough in 2019.
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Written by CJ Robles
