A ‘quantum processor’ has solved a physics problem on the behaviour of magnetism in certain solids that would take hundreds of thousands of years to calculate on the largest conventional supercomputers. The result is the latest claim of machine showing ‘quantum advantage’ over classical computers.
Although Google and others have claimed to achieve quantum advantage — most lately with the Sycamore chip that Google unveiled in December — researchers at D-Wave, a company in Burnaby, Canada, say that their result, published in Science1, is the first that solves an actual physics question. “We believe it’s the first time anyone has done it on a problem of scientific interest,” says D-Wave physicist Andrew King.
The D-Wave team did great work — but classical computing should not be counted out quite yet, says Miles Stoudenmire, a researcher at the Flatiron Institute Center for Computational Quantum Physics in New York City. “We're still in the race.”
The result also validates the approach the company has taken to quantum computing, King says. Rather than building a ‘universal’ quantum computer — one that could run any quantum algorithm — D-Wave has focused on an approach that was limited to performing certain calculations, but easier to scale.
An early pioneer in the quantum field, D-Wave machines have long led the industry in terms of number of qubits, the quantum equivalent of classical bits of information. The latest processor has thousands of qubits. “These are results of 25 years of hardware development and research at D-Wave,” says Mohammad Amin, another senior physicist at the company.
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