Chinese claim to take the lead in quantum computing

The three superpowers of the world are engaging in a race in quantum computing that most people avoid, even though this is exactly what will determine global supremacy. In this case, "computers" become "supercomputers," and the technology that they take advantage of is quantum mechanics. The difference between quantum computers and existing computers means much faster processing speeds and possibly solving problems and processing data that traditional machines would take millennia to complete. Whoever reaches the finish line first can solve problems faster than anyone else. It is the holy grail of information which when combined with 5G technology and the collection of big data makes a toxic cocktail. And now China claims to have made significant progress. A team of researchers from the University of Science and Technology of China has just announced that they have achieved a quantum computational advantage with their quantum computer prototype called "Jiuzhang". The achievement marks the country's first milestone on the way to a fully-fledged quantum computer - also known as "quantum supremacy". The computer achieved Gaussian boson sampling in less than four minutes. Those four minutes are significant: it would have taken the world's fastest supercomputer, Fugaku, 600 million years to accomplish the same thing. What does this mean for Google's quantum computing efforts? The Chinese team says their prototype processes are 10 billion times faster than Google's 53-qubit quantum computer, which was developed late last year. Google claimed to have achieved quantum supremacy by doing a computation in 200 seconds. The same computation by the world's fastest supercomputer in existence would have taken 10,000 years. So it's a matter of basic math it would seem: Google's 200 seconds / 10,000 years ... And Jiuzhang's 4 minutes / 600 million years. Cold war aside, proponents of quantum computer development see technology as the crucial game changer for self-learning artificial intelligence (AI), medicine, financial risk and much more ... However, the opponents are very uncertain about the ultimate benefit to society.