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Quote 1: "The Google group reiterates its claim that, in 200 seconds...."

Quote 2: " ...by tweaking the way Summit approaches the task, it can do it far faster: in 2.5 days."

Well, it's still 200 seconds vs 2.5 days, so I'd say the claim kinda stands. I know I would definitely buy the computer with 200 seconds vs the one with 2.5 days.



Not sure it's that clear cut, as per the blog post[0] linked elsewhere in this thread[1]:

> Recall that a quantum supremacy demonstration would be an experiment where a quantum computer can compute in 100 seconds something that requires a classical computer 10 hours. (Say.)

>The Google experiment actually showed that a quantum computer running for 100 seconds PLUS a classic computer that runs 1000 hours can compute something that requires a classic computer 10 hours.

0: https://gilkalai.wordpress.com/2019/10/13/the-story-of-poinc... 1: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=21334403


According to Scott Aaronson this claim is incorrect.

> Next he said that the experiment is invalid because the qubits have to be calibrated in a way that depends on the specific circuit to be applied. Except, this too turns out to be false: John Martinis explicitly confirmed for me that once the qubits are calibrated, you can run any circuit on them that you want.


Nobody is denying that the quantum system performs the task faster. The question is whether it performs a task that can't feasibly be performed by a classical system. That is what the researchers are specifically referring to when they say "quantum supremacy."

2.5 days is feasible. 10,000 years is not feasible.


Quantum supremacy is more about quantum computers being able to do something that classical computers could never do (1). I think that's the heart of the controversy. I'm quite sure Quantum has already proved faster for certain use cases already (2)

1. https://twitter.com/NatureNews/status/1186969282632134656?re... 2. https://arxiv.org/abs/1904.05803




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