Has Google Actually Achieved ‘Quantum Supremacy’ With Its New Quantum Computer?
A fully programmable quantum computer that can outperform any classical computer is right at the edge of today’s technology.
Earlier this month, a new story leaked out: Google, one of the leading companies invested in the endeavor of quantum computing, claims to have just achieved Quantum Supremacy. While our classical computers — like laptops, smartphones and even modern supercomputers — are extraordinarily powerful, there are many scientific questions whose complexity goes far beyond their brute-force capabilities to calculate or simulate.
But if we could build a powerful enough quantum computer, it’s possible that many problems that are impractical to solve with a classical computer would suddenly be solvable with a quantum computer. This idea, that quantum computers could efficiently solve a computation that a classical computer can only solve inefficiently, is known as Quantum Supremacy. Has Google actually done that? Let’s dive into the problem and find out.