Chinese quantum development timeline

2011: The Ministry of Science and Technology launches a project to create a quantum chip containing three qubits (units of quantum information).

2013: Chinese scientist Pan Jianwei and his team become the first in the world to solve linear equations using quantum computers.

2014: First generation three-qubit quantum chip prototype is born.

2015: Google, NASA and University of California, Santa Barbara, announce they had stabilized an array of nine-qubit entanglement in superconducting quantum processors. (Entanglement is when particles are grouped in ways that allow them to influence each other.) The second generation of China’s three-qubit quantum chip is born.

2016: China becomes the first country to achieve a 10-qubit entanglement in photons. Third- and fourth- generation quantum chips, containing four and 10 qubits, respectively, are born. China creates the world’s first photon quantum computer

2017: Chinese scientists stabilize an array of 10-qubit entanglement in superconducting quantum processors. They plan to scale up the photon quantum computer to 20 qubits by year’s end.

2020: China plans to complete a photon quantum computer with 50 qubits, reaching global quantum supremacy.