Google confirms quantum computing breakthrough with 54-qubit Sycamore chip

Google confirms quantum computing breakthrough with 54-qubit Sycamore chip An experimental quantum processor performed a calculation in minutes that would've taken an ordinary supercomputer thousands of years, Google said.

A Google quantum computer has far outpaced ordinary computing technology, an achievement called quantum supremacy that's an important milestone for a revolutionary way of processing data. Google disclosed the results in the journal Nature on Wednesday. The achievement came after more than a decade of work at Google, including the use of its own quantum computing chip, called Sycamore.

News of the paper leaked via a Nasa website last month, detailing that Google had achieved so-called 'quantum supremacy', which happens when a quantum computer can solve problems that would take a classical computer too long to be considered practical.

Google says that its 54-qubit Sycamore processor was able to perform a calculation in 200 seconds that would have taken the world’s most powerful supercomputer 10,000 years. That would mean the calculation, which involved generated random numbers, is essentially impossible on a traditional, non-quantum computer.

“For such large-scale endeavors it is good engineering practice to formulate decisive short-term goals that demonstrate whether the designs are going in the right direction,” Google’s John Martinis and Sergio Boxio, chief scientists of quantum hardware and quantum computing theory, wrote in the blog post. “So, we devised an experiment as an important milestone to help answer these questions.”

The technique relies on quantum bits, or qubits, which can register data values of zero and one the language of modern computing simultaneously. Big tech companies including Google, Microsoft, IBM and Intel are avidly pursuing the technology.

Quantum computing researcher Scott Aaronson likened the step to landing on the moon in terms of momentousness. And in a tweet Wednesday, Google Chief Executive Sundar Pichai called it a "big breakthrough."

"Google's experiment is an excellent demonstration of the progress in superconducting-based quantum computing, showing state-of-the-art gate fidelities on a 53-qubit device, but it should not be viewed as proof that quantum computers are 'supreme' over classical computers," the IBMers said.

IBM quickly took issue with Google's claim that it had achieved "quantum supremacy," a term that refers to a point when a quantum computer can perform a calculation that a traditional computer can't complete within its lifetime. Google's leaked paper showed that its quantum processor, Sycamore, finished a calculation in three minutes and 20 seconds and that it would take the world's fastest supercomputer 10,000 years to do the same thing.