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Chinese scientists claim to have built a quantum computer that can perform certain calculations nearly 100 trillion times faster than the world’s most advanced supercomputer, marking the first milestone in the country’s efforts to develop the technology.
Researchers have built a prototype quantum computer that is capable of detecting up to 76 photons through Gaussian boson sampling, a standard simulation algorithm, the state-run Xinhua news agency said, citing research published in Sciences magazine. That’s exponentially faster than existing supercomputers.
The advance represents a quantum computational advantage, also known as quantum supremacy, in which no traditional computer can perform the same task in a reasonable amount of time and is unlikely to be negated by algorithmic or hardware improvements, according to the research.
Although still in its infancy, quantum computing is seen as the key to radically improving the processing speed and power of computers, allowing them to simulate large systems and drive advances in physics, chemistry, and other fields. Chinese researchers are competing with major US corporations, from Alphabet Inc’s Google to Amazon.com Inc and Microsoft Corp, for leadership in technology, which has become another front in the US-China technology race.
Google said last year that it has built a computer that could perform a calculation in 200 seconds that would take the fastest supercomputers around 10,000 years to reach quantum supremacy. Chinese researchers claim that their new prototype is capable of processing 10 billion times faster than Google’s prototype, according to the Xinhua report.
The Xi Jinping government is building a US $ 10 billion (RM40.6 billion) National Quantum Information Science Laboratory as part of a major push in the field. In the United States, the Trump administration provided $ 1 trillion (RM4.06 bill) in funding for AI and quantum information research earlier this year and has tried to take credit for Google’s breakthrough in 2019. – Bloomberg
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