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China’s quantum computer Jiuzhang beats Google’s supercomputer by far

With the new Jiuzhang system, China wants to have made considerable progress in quantum computing. The new system is apparently to be ten billion times faster than the quantum computer presented by Google in 2019. Last year Google presented the prototype of a quantum computer. This is said to be the first time that quantum superiority has been achieved. This was tested with a task for which even the most powerful supercomputer would have needed 10,000 years. Google’s quantum computer called Sycamore with its 53 qubits probably solved this task in just 200 seconds. The Chinese researchers are now said to have used their system to produce a computer that is ten billion times faster than Google’s Sycamore.

Quantum computer Jiuzhang

According to the researchers, the Chinese quantum computer provides up to 100 trillion times faster computing power than the most powerful supercomputer. The Jiuzhang runs on a photon basis. The data were determined on the basis of a single special calculation. In this case, it was the Gaussian boson sampling. Unfortunately, it is not yet possible to use the quantum computer for other methods. However, only for the achievement of quantum superiority this is already sufficient.

The development of the new system took almost 20 years. The quantum physicist Pan Jianwei and Chinese researchers were involved. The challenge during the development was probably to find a very high quality photon source which only releases one single photon at a time. For quantum physicist Jianwei, the search for a suitable photon source was particularly important.

Potential of the Jiuzhang is not yet exhausted

The Chinese researchers see further areas of application for the new system, even if it has so far only been able to handle one task. For example, the potential is not yet exhausted; the Jiuzhang could also achieve top performance in quantum chemistry or in areas such as machine learning. Its system took just 200 seconds to complete the task at hand, whereas the fastest supercomputer, for example the Japanese Fugaku, would have taken 2.5 billion years. Criticism regarding the superiority of quantum computers is also present, of course. The IBM company, for example, denied at the presentation of Sycamore that their supercomputer needed 10,000 years for the task it was set. Here, only a reprogramming of the supercomputer would have to be done and Sycamore would be finished with the task in two and a half days.

Simon Lüthje

I am co-founder of this blog and am very interested in everything that has to do with technology, but I also like to play games. I was born in Hamburg, but now I live in Bad Segeberg.

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