Quantum Leap

Google announced a major advance in quantum computing. They claim to have a processor that uses quantum computing technology that completed a calculation in 3 minutes and 20 seconds that would take current supercomputers tens of thousands of years.

The paper describing this demonstration was apparently leaked to the media, and IBM, among others, saw it. IBM says its top supercomputer could have completed the described calculations in two and a half days.

Doing the math, that means Google's processor took two hundred seconds for a calculation that IBM's top supercomputer would need 216,000 seconds to complete. That is three orders of magnitude difference, which seems remarkable.

But IBM challenged Google on the claim that they had reached Quantum Supremacy. I understand that is a term that means building a quantum processor that can complete calculations that "ordinary" supercomputers could not complete during their useful lifetime, metaphorically speaking. A mere three orders of magnitude improvement is for chumps, I guess.

I read other comments about this experiment. Like, the real test will be to find a practical application. So the calculation that was done means nothing. I'm sure there are possible calculations that serve no useful purpose. I'm not sure why Google would choose one of those for their test. But I also don't know how one would program a supercomputer to work on a calculation that is expected to take ten thousand years. I'm not that deep into math challenges.

This seems to be a sign that a major advance in computing technology is happening. That's cool. I have also read recently that we're right on the edge of functional nuclear fusion reactors, which would provide cheap electricity with minimal side effects. Also cool, not considering the temperature of the core of the fusion reactor's temperature.

In other news, a group of scientists from several major research centers published a report claiming that economists are dramatically underestimating the costs of global warming, and we're all totally screwed. So we can't too excited about things getting better all of a sudden. Mostly, this provides a lot of entertainment. We live in interesting times.