Super computer that solves puzzles 10,000 years faster than closest rival
GOOGLE has created a computer so powerful it can crack a maths problem that currently takes 10,000 years to solve in just 3.3 minutes.
The tech giant claims its ‘quantum’ device could usher in a new era of technology.
It operates in a different way to ordinary computers such as the one on your desk or in your phone.
Yesterday Google announced its new machine took just minutes to crack the maths riddle which would keep the world’s current most powerful conventional device busy until the year 12019AD.
The problem, while fiendishly complex, had no real-world use. But researchers say the announcement marks a moment of technological lift-off – like the first flight in a plane by the Wright brothers.
Computers millions of times more powerful than those around today could revolutionise the search for treatments for diseases such as Alzheimer’s, create artificial intelligence, improve our understanding of DNA, and forecast the weather more accurately.
But they could also have repercussions for security.
Codes used by spies, the military and banks could be cracked in seconds – potentially revealing longhidden diplomatic secrets. However it could be decades before further advances allow this.
Writing in the journal Nature, Google researchers Frank Arute and colleagues described their breakthrough as an example of ‘quantum supremacy’.
Willliam Oliver, Professor of Physics at Massachusetts Institute of Technology said: ‘Arute and colleagues’ demonstration is
Speedy: Part of the computer in many ways reminiscent of the Wright brothers’ first flights. Their aeroplane, the Wright Flyer, wasn’t the first airborne vehicle to fly, and it didn’t solve any pressing transport problem.
‘Instead, the event is remembered for having shown a new operational regime – the self-propelled flight of an aircraft that was heavier than air.
‘It is what the event represented, rather than what it practically accomplished, that was paramount. And so it is with this first report of quantum computational supremacy.’ Quantum computing
‘Quantum supremacy’
has been a dream of scientists for 30 years – harnessing some of the bizarre features of quantum physics, the study of subatomic particles.
The basic building block of a traditional computers is the ‘ bit’, which can be represented by either a zero or a one. Quantum computers are more powerful because their building block, the ‘ qubit’, can represent a vastly higher number of states.
Google’s computer used 53 qubits. It was meant to have 54, but one of the qubits broke.
A quantum computer able to crack real world challenges will need millions of qubits, which is why experts think real progress is decades away.
Tech rival IBM, which made the world’s most powerful supercomputer called Summit, disputed the result, claiming it would actually take two and a half days.
John Preskill, a professor at the California Institute of Technology who coined the phrase ‘quantum supremacy’ said of the breakthrough: ‘The milestone allegedly achieved by Google is a pivotal step in the quest for practical quantum computers.’