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Just six weeks ago I posted about Google quantum AI guru Hartmut Neven predicting that quantum computing would grow at an unheard-of doubly exponential rate, and that the long-sought benchmark of quantum supremacy would be reached sometime this year.
True to Neven's predictions, word has filtered out that Google has submitted a scientific paper reporting the first demonstration of a quantum computer solving a problem that even the most powerful classical computer can't manage--the hallmark of quantum supremacy. Reportedly, the problem Google's 54-qubit computer solved in 200 seconds would have taken a supercomputer 10,000 years to do.
One caveat--the problem was a very specific task known to be particularly well suited to a quantum computer. Much more work is needed before quantum computers will be able to tackle a full range of real-world problems. However, those developments will almost certainly happen much sooner than most people imagine.
This milestone is important in itself, meaning that scientists in every field, cryptographers, AI researchers, etc., will soon be able to tackle tasks that were previously impossible. However, what really demands everyone's attention is that easily-missed prediction, now known as Neven's law, that progress in quantum computing is going to unfold at a doubly exponential rate.
"To our knowledge," the Google team writes, "this experiment marks the fi rst computation that
You can get a sense of what this astonishing rate of change means in my earlier post, "Forget Moore's Law. Neven's Law Rules Now." The bottom line is that we can expect as much progress in quantum computing in the next five or six years as we've seen in the digital world over the past five or six decades. After that point, all bets are off. If you think that the digital revolution has been earth shaking, just wait for the quantum revolution.
As Nevens says, "It looks like nothing is happening, nothing is happening, and then whoops, suddenly you're in a different world."
Well, we're in that new world now. It's going to make words to describe the rate of change, such as "breathtaking," "jet propelled" or "explosive" seem far too slow.
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Robert Adler
Quantum computer core
Credit: Flickr
True to Neven's predictions, word has filtered out that Google has submitted a scientific paper reporting the first demonstration of a quantum computer solving a problem that even the most powerful classical computer can't manage--the hallmark of quantum supremacy. Reportedly, the problem Google's 54-qubit computer solved in 200 seconds would have taken a supercomputer 10,000 years to do.
One caveat--the problem was a very specific task known to be particularly well suited to a quantum computer. Much more work is needed before quantum computers will be able to tackle a full range of real-world problems. However, those developments will almost certainly happen much sooner than most people imagine.
This milestone is important in itself, meaning that scientists in every field, cryptographers, AI researchers, etc., will soon be able to tackle tasks that were previously impossible. However, what really demands everyone's attention is that easily-missed prediction, now known as Neven's law, that progress in quantum computing is going to unfold at a doubly exponential rate.
"To our knowledge," the Google team writes, "this experiment marks the fi rst computation that
can only be performed on a quantum processor. Quantum processors have thus reached the regime of quantum supremacy. We expect their computational power will continue to grow at a double exponential rate."
You can get a sense of what this astonishing rate of change means in my earlier post, "Forget Moore's Law. Neven's Law Rules Now." The bottom line is that we can expect as much progress in quantum computing in the next five or six years as we've seen in the digital world over the past five or six decades. After that point, all bets are off. If you think that the digital revolution has been earth shaking, just wait for the quantum revolution.
As Nevens says, "It looks like nothing is happening, nothing is happening, and then whoops, suddenly you're in a different world."
Well, we're in that new world now. It's going to make words to describe the rate of change, such as "breathtaking," "jet propelled" or "explosive" seem far too slow.
-----
Robert Adler
