Google paper claims ‘quantum supremacy’ has been achieved

A paper published on a Nasa website, before being quickly removed, has described Google’s apparently successful project to build a quantum computer that reaches quantum supremacy.

- Quantum computers make use of quantum-mechanical phenomena such as superposition to carry out calculations rapidly. Quantum computers use ‘qubits’ instead of bits: while bits can be either a 0 or a 1, a qubit can represent 0, 1, or any superposition of these two states. While quantum computers are in the early stages of development, a quantum computer could theoretically perform calculations exponentially faster than a classical computer.

- Quantum supremacy is a milestone in quantum computing, referring to the ability of quantum computers to perform calculates which would not be possible using classical computers.

- The Google paper describing this achievement, which was briefly made available on a Nasa website before being removed (Google and Nasa collaborate on developing quantum hardware), was reported on by the Financial Times.

- According to the paper, Google engineers created a quantum computer with 54 qubits – of which 53 were functional – nicknamed ‘Sycamore’. This is a successor to Google’s previous 72-qubit ‘Bristlecone’, which did not achieve the milestone. The computer was used to perform calculations - performing random operations and printing the results - in 200 seconds which would have taken the most advanced supercomputers an estimated 10,000 years. However, it is worth noting that the calculations were performed on a supercooled quantum rig designed specifically for this purpose and which does not also function as a general-purpose computer.

Comments

Party Pairs

Atoms in a gas can seem like partiers at a nanoscopic rave, with particles zipping around, pairing up, and flying off again in a seemingly random fashion. And yet physicists have come up with formulas that predict this behavior, even when the atoms are extremely close together and can tug and pull on each other in complicated ways. The environment within the nucleus of a single atom seems similar, with protons and neutrons also dancing about. But because the nucleus is such a compact space, scientists have struggled to pin down the behavior of these particles, known as nucleons, in an atom’s nucleus. Models that describe the interactions of nucleons that are far apart broken down when the particles pair up and interact at close range. Now an MIT-led team has simulated the behavior of protons and neutrons in several types of atomic nuclei, using some of the most powerful supercomputers in the world. The team explored a wide range of nuclear interaction models and found, surprising...

The Next Best Thing to Jezero Crater This Side of Mars

You may not be able to travel to Jezero Crater on , but you can visit the next best thing: Lake Salda, Turkey. Researchers are using their understanding of Lake Salda to help guide the Mars 2020 mission, which will drop the Perseverance rover into the crater to search for signs of ancient life. “One of the great things about visiting Lake Salda is it really gives you a sense of what it would have been like to stand on the shores of ancient Lake Jezero,” said Briony Horgan, a planetary scientist at Purdue University and member of the Perseverance science team. “Carbonates are important because they are really good at trapping anything that existed within that environment, such as microbes, organics, or certain textures that provide evidence of past microbial life,” said Brad Garczynski, a graduate student at Purdue who works with Horgan. “But before we go to Jezero, it is really important to gain context on how these carbonates form on Earth in order to focus our search for signs f...

Time-Stretch Infrared Spectroscopy

Spectroscopy is an important tool of observation in many areas of science and industry. Infrared spectroscopy is especially important in the world of chemistry where it is used to analyze and identify different molecules. The current state-of-the-art method can make approximately 1 million observations per second. University of Tokyo researchers have greatly surpassed this figure with a new method about 100 times faster. From climate science to safety systems, manufacture to quality control of foodstuffs, infrared spectroscopy is used in so many academic and industrial fields that it’s a ubiquitous, albeit invisible, part of everyday life. In essence, infrared spectroscopy is a way to identify what molecules are present in a sample of a substance with a high degree of accuracy. The basic idea has been around for decades and has undergone improvements along the way. In general, infrared spectroscopy works by measuring infrared light transmitted or reflected from molecules in a sa...

Pratham-Tech-Talks

Search This Blog