Google’s latest breakthrough, attains the ‘Quantum Supremacy’

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In a recently leaked paper, the tech giant revealed to had built a quantum computer that solved a problem that would take traditional supercomputers 10,000 years.

Importance of this milestone can be estimated from the fact that Sundar Pichai, Google’s CEO, compares this to the first 12-second flight from the Wright brothers.

In a recent paper from Google posted on NASA.gov, which has been taken down earlier this week. The tech giant seems to have attained a state in ‘Quantum Computing’ which was previously supposed to be a far cry.

In the paper, Google says that it has achieved quantum supremacy, a major milestone towards the development of quantum computers.

To understand the impact of this we need to

First understand the ‘Quantum Supremacy’.

It’s the point at which a quantum computer can complete a mathematical calculation that is demonstrably beyond the reach of even the most powerful supercomputer.


You can know more about ‘Quantum Computers’ here


Although google is declining to confirm the authenticity of the paper and its results. NASA also did not respond immediately to a request for comment.

According to a source from Google, NASA accidentally published the paper early, before its team’s claims could be thoroughly vetted through scientific peer review, a process that could take anywhere from weeks to months.

But if the paper holds up to its claims then it is going to be one of the greatest moments in quantum science.

According to the paper’s claim, Google’s 53-bit quantum computer, named Sycamore, took 200 seconds to perform a calculation that, according to Google, would have taken the world’s fastest supercomputer Summit 10,000 years.

The paper’s copy was retrieved by The Financial Times before it disappeared. “To our knowledge,” Google’s paper read, “this experiment marks the first computation that can only be performed on a quantum processor.” The Google research paper was titled “Quantum supremacy using a programmable superconducting processor.”

The experiment

The experiment described in the paper sampled randomly generated numbers produced through a specialized scenario involving quantum phenomena. The researchers said they determined that their quantum computer beat regular computers at the task, which involved calculating the output of certain specialized circuits.

The calculations have almost no practical use. It was chosen just to show that Sycamore can indeed work the way a quantum computer should. Practical Quantum machines are still many years away, due to huge technical hurdles.

And even then they might beat the traditional supercomputers only in certain tasks.

But still this will surely spice up the QUANTUM RACE between the Tech giants like Google, IBM, and Intel, as well as startups such as Rigetti Computing. Which will lead to unprecedented scientific and technical breakthroughs in the coming years. All for the betterment of humankind.


Competition has been shown to be useful
up to a certain point and no further,
but cooperation, which is the thing we must strive for today,
begins where competition leaves off.

Franklin D. Roosevelt

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