While the race to develop a quantum computer that can surpass traditional supercomputers continues at full speed, researchers from all over the world continue to work on this issue. While the idea that quantum computers, if reduced to a sufficient size, could cause a leap in structure that could erase the name of existing supercomputers, caused great excitement, the good news came from China.
A research team from China has announced that it has developed a superconducting quantum processor with 66 functional qubits. It is claimed that this processor is capable of easily subordinating any supercomputer when faced with a complex sampling calculation, and that it can perform the calculation only in a single moment. Underlining that this is an important milestone for quantum computers, Chinese researchers named the processor they developed Zuchongzhi.
Jian-Wei Pan from the University of Science and Technology of China describes Zuchongzhi’s performance as follows: “The processor we developed contains 66 functional qubits and can only handle extremely complex sampling problems, which we estimate to be 2-3 times more demanding than previous quantum operations. It can complete it in 2 hours. When we give the same sampling problem to the most powerful supercomputer, we think it will take 8 years to complete this process.”
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