A millisecond instead of 30 trillion years for a task: China introduced a new quantum computer

Competition between Washington and Beijing in the field of quantum technologies is intensifying. Physicists in China say

that they built a quantum computer whose speedwork and productivity exceeds the American counterpart from Google. An article about the development is published in peer-reviewed journals Physical Review Letters and Science Bulletin.

The supercomputer, called Jiuzhang 2, can solve a problem in one millisecond that would take the fastest conventional machine 30 trillion years to complete.

Scientists also talked about Zuchongzhi 2 - thisan improved version of the previous car, it was built three months ago. Pan Jianwei, lead author of the new study, said Zuchongzhi 2, a 66-qubit programmable superconducting quantum computer, is 10 million times faster than Google's 55-qubit Sycamore. At the same time, Jiuzhang 2 has fewer applications, but it can run at incredible speed - 100 sextillion times faster than conventional computers. But while the specs of these new machines hint at a computing revolution, they won't hit the market anytime soon.

So far, both computers can only work inspecial environment and only for hyper-specific tasks. And, even with extra care, they still make a lot of mistakes. Chinese scientists said they plan to rectify the situation in the next 4-5 years.

Read more:

Hubble took a photo of the same active galaxy 20 years apart

Scientists' find reveals the past of Antarctica in the era of dinosaurs

Astronomers told where and how gold and platinum are formed in the universe