Chinese Developers Claim World's Fastest Quantum Computer
Chinese researchers have demonstrated what they claim to be the most powerful quantum computer in the world. To prove how fast the supercomputer is , the researchers completed a convoluted calculation that would take a typical supercomputer about eight years to complete in little over an hour.
The Zuchongzhi quantum computer is a 66-qubit machine, reports ZME Science. For comparison, Google's Sycamore chip features 53 qubits, whereas IBM's Q System One chip packs 20 qubits. Packing qubits into chips and creating quantum mechanical superposition effect is not easy, but ensuring that they work correctly (without an error) is even harder. To that end, 66 qubits is an achievement. Furthermore, adding several qubits to a quantum CPU exponentially increases its performance
Quantum computer chips have to be cooled down to 273.15ºC and this temperature has to be maintained, which makes it even harder to build quantum computers and use them. As a result, right now quantum computers are mostly used for experiments with high-performance computing by researchers and high-tech giants.
