Scientists pinpoint the singularity for quantum computers

Researchers from the University of Bristol have discovered that super-powerful quantum computers, which scientists and engineers across the world are racing to build, need to be even more powerful than previously thought before they can beat today's ordinary PCs.

Quantum computers are a new type of machine thatoperate on quantum mechanical hardware and are predicted to give enormous speed advantages in solving certain problems.

Research groups at leading universities and companies, including Google,Microsoft and IBM, are part of a worldwide race to realise the first quantum computer that crosses into the 'quantum computational singularity'.

This represents a problem so complex that today's top supercomputer would take centuries to find a solution, while a quantum computer could crack it in minutes.

Now a team of scientists from Bristolhave discovered that the boundary to this singularity is further away than previously thought.

The research is reported this week in Nature Physics.