Photonic Quantum Computer Claims Speedup "Advantage" (36 microseconds vs 9,000 years)

[sl8]

https://spectrum.ieee.org/photonic-quantum-computing

Photonic Quantum Computer Claims Speedup “Advantage” Quantum-powered cloud 7,800,000,000,000,000x as fast, for some problems, as a supercomputer

CHARLES Q. CHOI09 JUN 20223 MIN READ

A new photonic quantum computer takes just 36 microseconds to perform a task that would take a conventional supercomputer more than 9,000 years to complete. The new device, named Borealis, is the first quantum computer from a startup to display such “quantum advantage” over regular computers. Borealis is also the first machine capable of quantum advantage to be made available to the public over the cloud.

Quantum computers can theoretically achieve a quantum advantage that enables them to find the answers to problems no classical computers could ever solve. The more components known as qubits that a quantum computer has, the greater its computational power can grow, in an exponential fashion.

Many companies, including giants such as Google, IBM, and Amazon as well as startups such as IonQ, rely on qubits based on superconducting circuits or trapped ions. One drawback with these approaches is that they both demand temperatures colder than those found in deep space, because heat can disrupt the qubits. The expensive, bulky cryogenic systems required to hold qubits at such frigid temperatures can also make it a major challenge to scale these platforms up to high numbers of qubits—or to smaller and more portable form factors.

In contrast, quantum computers that depend on qubits based on photons can, in principle, operate at room temperature. They can also readily integrate into existing fiber-optic-based telecommunications systems, potentially helping connect quantum computers into powerful networks and even into a quantum Internet.

[...]

==============================================

https://www.nature.com/articles/s41586-022-04725-x

Quantum computational advantage with a programmable photonic processor

Lars S. Madsen, Fabian Laudenbach, Mohsen Falamarzi. Askarani, Fabien Rortais, Trevor Vincent, Jacob F. F. Bulmer, Filippo M. Miatto, Leonhard Neuhaus, Lukas G. Helt, Matthew J. Collins, Adriana E. Lita, Thomas Gerrits, Sae Woo Nam, Varun D. Vaidya, Matteo Menotti, Ish Dhand, Zachary Vernon, Nicolás Quesada & Jonathan Lavoie

Nature volume 606, pages75–81 (2022)Cite this article

Abstract

A quantum computer attains computational advantage when outperforming the best classical computers running the best-known algorithms on well-defined tasks. No photonic machine offering programmability over all its quantum gates has demonstrated quantum computational advantage: previous machines1,2 were largely restricted to static gate sequences. Earlier photonic demonstrations were also vulnerable to spoofing3, in which classical heuristics produce samples, without direct simulation, lying closer to the ideal distribution than do samples from the quantum hardware. Here we report quantum computational advantage using Borealis, a photonic processor offering dynamic programmability on all gates implemented. We carry out Gaussian boson sampling4 (GBS) on 216 squeezed modes entangled with three-dimensional connectivity5, using a time-multiplexed and photon-number-resolving architecture. On average, it would take more than 9,000 years for the best available algorithms and supercomputers to produce, using exact methods, a single sample from the programmed distribution, whereas Borealis requires only 36 μs. This runtime advantage is over 50 million times as extreme as that reported from earlier photonic machines. Ours constitutes a very large GBS experiment, registering events with up to 219 photons and a mean photon number of 125. This work is a critical milestone on the path to a practical quantum computer, validating key technological features of photonics as a platform for this goal.

Main

Only a handful of experiments have used quantum devices to carry out computational tasks that are outside the reach of present-day classical computers1,2,6,7. In all of these, the computational task involved sampling from probability distributions that are widely believed to be exponentially hard to simulate using classical computation. One such demonstration relied on a 53-qubit programmable superconducting processor6, whereas another used a non-programmable photonic platform implementing Gaussian boson sampling (GBS) with 50 squeezed states fed into a static random 100-mode interferometer1. Both were shortly followed by larger versions, respectively enjoying more qubits7,8 and increased control over brightness and a limited set of circuit parameters2. In these examples, comparison of the duration of the quantum sampling experiment to the estimated runtime and scaling of the best-known classical algorithms placed their respective platforms within the regime of quantum computational advantage.

[...]

[lapfog_1]

1. so far, these quantum computations are restricted to a very small class of problems.

That said, one of the things the Quantum Computers might be very good at is breaking encryption keys.

Block chain? AES256?

Oops.

[TexasTowelie]

2. Yes, but will it get rid of 404 errors? nt

[mitch96]

3. +1 nt

[Bayard]

4. It's a Quantum Leap!

(sorry).

[InAbLuEsTaTe]

5. Total B.S.!! No absolute proof given in that article.