For the 1st time, a machine that runs on mind-boggling physics of quantum mechanics stumps world’s top super-computers. A breakthrough called ‘quantum supremacy’.
Google’s AI Quantum team creates a major leap for ‘quantum computing’. Technology that relies on behaviour of tiny particles to encode huge amounts of information. Google’s Sycamore Processor performed in less than 3 1/2 minutes a calculation that takes powerful computers 10,000 years!
By providing exponentially greater calculation power than machines we use today, quantum computers transform ways we communicate ideas, decode data, comprehend the universe. Things theoretical in the past are now really becoming a reality. Google CEO Pichai called it a ‘hello world‘ milestone, ‘a moment of possibility‘.
In quantum realm, electrons leap from one energy state to other. Particles exist in multiple states, a phenomenon called ‘super-position’. Classical computers encode data in ‘bits’, an electrical or optical pulse in either 0 or 1. 8 bits constitute a ‘byte’, which stores one character like letter A. 1st 8-inch floppy disk held 243,000 bytes. Apple’s new iPhone 11 holds 64 billion bytes.
A ‘quantum bit’ or ‘qubit’ isn’t confined to being just 0 or 1. Associated with twice as many numbers, power increases with each ‘qubit’. Harnessing quantum physics small machines hold vast amounts of data, perform super fast multiple calculations.
Sycamore Processor is a tiny silicon chip of 54 ‘qubits’. Obvious applications are in national security. Pharmaceutical researchers can discover new drugs. Great artificial intelligence potential.
Pichai – “In many ways quantum brings computing full circle, giving us another way to speak language of the universe. Understand world is not just in 1’s and 0’s but in all unknown states – beautiful, complex with limitless possibilities.”
Wow!