Chinese Quantum Computing

Quantum computing is expected to be able to be able to 'break' some forms of encryption,  thus the concerns mentioned.

China joins Google in claiming quantum supremacy with new technology, ratcheting up RSA decryption concerns.

China’s top quantum-computer researchers have reported that they have achieved quantum supremacy, i.e., the ability to perform tasks a traditional supercomputer cannot. And while it’s a thrilling development, the inevitable rise of quantum computing means security teams are one step closer to facing a threat more formidable than anything before.

Researchers from the University of Science and Technology of China explained in the journal Science they were able to get a system they named Jiuzhang to perform a calculation in minutes that would have taken a traditional supercomputer an estimated 10,000 years to solve.

The team joins Google, which claimed it achieved quantum supremacy in Oct. 2019 using a “supercold, superconducting metal,” according to WIRED. IBM has also entered the quantum computing fray, while leveling criticism against Google’s claims of supremacy.

Now, the Chinese researchers have claimed quantum supremacy using a quantum computation called Gaussian boson sampling (GBS), their paper explained, which uses particles of light sent through an optical circuit, measuring the output. This means there are now multiple proven quantum-computing technologies, with surely more to come.

The security concern is that quantum computers will be able to crack RSA public key cryptography, used to protect data in transit. That means security teams will have to pivot to new post-quantum cryptography solutions. A conservative estimate from a 2019 DigiCert report said teams will need to have protections from quantum computing breaches in place by 2022.   ... " 

Finns Claim Quantum Measurement Breakthrough

Once again accurate measurement is the key to understanding value.

Finnish researchers claim quantum computing breakthrough in Techxplore

Scientists have created a device which could make it easier to harness super-fast quantum computers for real-world applications, a team at Finland's Aalto University said on Wednesday.

Quantum computers are a new generation of machines powered by energy transfers between so-called "artificial atoms"—electrical circuits a fraction of a millimetre across. Scientists believe the devices will eventually be able to vastly outperform even the world's most powerful conventional supercomputers.

Last October, Google announced it had reached "quantum supremacy" by creating a machine which executed a calculation in 200 seconds that would have taken a classic computer 10,000 years to complete.  Although a remarkable leap in the field, Google's Sycamore computer was held back by errors in its processing, caused in part by shortcomings in how the device measured the energy being stored in its memory. ... '

Source:    R. Kokkoniemi et al. Bolometer operating at the threshold for circuit quantum electrodynamics, Nature (2020). DOI: 10.1038/s41586-020-2753-3   Journal information: Nature 

Another Take on the Search for Quantum Supremacy

This has come up a few times since last year with claims from major Tech.    IEEE Spectrum looks at the supremacy claim again, intro below and more at the link.  How do we measure real results on real problems of value?

How Many Qubits Are Needed For Quantum Supremacy?
Whether Google achieved quantum supremacy depends on perspective
By Charles Q. Choi  in IEEE Spectrum

Quantum computers theoretically can prove more powerful than any supercomputer, and now scientists calculate just what quantum computers need to attain such "quantum supremacy," and whether or not Google achieved it with their claims last year.

Whereas classical computers switch transistors either on or off to symbolize data as ones and zeroes, quantum computers use quantum bits or qubits that, because of the bizarre nature of quantum physics, can be in a state of superposition where they are both 1 and 0 simultaneously.

Superposition lets one qubit perform two calculations at once, and if two qubits are linked through a quantum effect known as entanglement, they can help perform 22 or four calculations simultaneously; three qubits, 23 or eight calculations; and so on. In principle, a quantum computer with 300 qubits could perform more calculations in an instant than there are atoms in the visible universe.

It remains controversial how many qubits are needed to achieve quantum supremacy over standard computers. Last year, Google claimed to achieve quantum supremacy with just 53 qubits, performing a calculation in 200 seconds that the company estimated would take the world's most powerful supercomputer 10,000 years, but IBM researchers argued in a blog post “that an ideal simulation of the same task can be performed on a classical system in 2.5 days and with far greater fidelity.”  ... '

Quantum Supremacy

Further commentary on Quantum Computing, by the CEO of Microsoft. Not only about the supremacy claim, but also in general about quantum computing and what it will mean in the future.

Google CEO Sundar Pichai on achieving quantum supremacy

In an exclusive interview with MIT Technology Review, Pichai explains why quantum computing could be as important for Google as AI.      by Gideon Lichfield  .... '

Quantum Supremacy Examined

In a recent conversation the term 'Quantum Supremacy' came up and I mentioned it here, and the concept also was implied in some writing today.   Google has made some claims.  Note this deals with a rough measure of the value of quantum computing, although still hypothetical.  It means they can see a way that this method can  always be better than classical computing, not that they have done it.  It came to mind I had not researched the precise definition of the term, and here is what I found:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Quantum_computing
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Quantum_supremacy

Quantum supremacy

John Preskill has introduced the term quantum supremacy to refer to the hypothetical speedup advantage that a quantum computer would have over a classical computer in a certain field.[28] Google announced in 2017 that it expected to achieve quantum supremacy by the end of the year though that did not happen. IBM said in 2018 that the best classical computers will be beaten on some practical task within about five years and views the quantum supremacy test only as a potential future benchmark.[29] Although skeptics like Gil Kalai doubt that quantum supremacy will ever be achieved, [30][31] Google has been reported to have done so, with calculations more than 3,000,000 times as fast as those of Summit, generally considered the world's fastest computer. [32] Bill Unruh doubted the practicality of quantum computers in a paper published back in 1994.[33] Paul Davies argued that a 400-qubit computer would even come into conflict with the cosmological information bound implied by the holographic principle.[34]  .... "

Google Quantum Supremacy?

Quite a tease here.   Have they really reached this goal?  And what was the nature and form of the problem?  See much more below.    And at the link.

Google researchers have reportedly achieved “quantum supremacy”
Google's quantum computer  in MIT Tech Review

The news: According to a report in the Financial Times, (oops, the site is walled) a team of researchers from Google led by John Martinis have demonstrated quantum supremacy for the first time. This is the point at which a quantum computer is shown to be capable of performing a task that’s beyond the reach of even the most powerful conventional supercomputer. The claim appeared in a paper that was posted on a NASA website, but the publication was then taken down. Google did not respond to a request for comment from MIT Technology Review.   ... "