Tech giant Google claims breakthrough in computing research

Google says it has achieved a breakthrough in quantum computing research.

The technology giant said an experimental quantum processor has completed a calculation in just a few minutes that would take a traditional supercomputer thousands of years.

The findings, published in the scientific journal Nature, show that “quantum speed-up is achievable in a real-world system and is not precluded by any hidden physical laws”, the researchers wrote.

Quantum computing is a nascent and somewhat bewildering technology for vastly sped-up information processing.

Quantum computers might one day revolutionise tasks that would take existing computers years, including the hunt for new drugs and optimising city and transportation planning.

The technique relies on quantum bits, or qubits, which can register data values of zero and one simultaneously.

Big tech companies including Google, Microsoft, IBM and Intel are avidly pursuing the technology.

“Quantum things can be in multiple places at the same time,” said Chris Monroe, a Maryland University physicist who is also the founder of quantum start-up IonQ.

Google’s findings, however, are already facing pushback from other industry researchers. A version of Google’s paper leaked online last month and researchers caught a glimpse before it was taken down.

IBM quickly took issue with Google’s claim that it had achieved “quantum supremacy”, a term that refers to a point when a quantum computer can perform a calculation that a traditional computer cannot complete within its lifetime.

Google’s leaked paper showed that its quantum processor, Sycamore, finished a calculation in three minutes and 20 seconds – and that it would take the world’s fastest supercomputer 10,000 years to do the same thing.

But IBM researchers say Google underestimated the conventional supercomputer, called Summit, and said it could actually do the calculation in two and a half days. Google has not commented on IBM’s claims.