The quantum advantage: a novel demonstration

Is a quantum machine really more efficient than a conventional machine for performing calculations? Demonstrating this ‘advantage’ experimentally is particularly complex and a major research challenge around the world1. Scientists from the CNRS2, the University of Edinburgh (Scotland) and the QC Ware, Corp., (France and USA) have just proved that a quantum machine can perform a given verification task in seconds when the same exercise would take a time equivalent to the age of the universe for a conventional computer. For this demonstration, they combined a complex interactive algorithm that solves a certain type of mathematical problem with limited information and a simple experimental photonics system that can be made in all advanced photonics laboratories. Their work was published on 8 February 2021 in

Nature Communications

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Notes:

1 In 2019, Google achieved the first demonstration of this type when it sampled from random quantum circuits on their Sycamore chip, made of 53 superconducting qubits. Very recently, Chinese researchers have shown a quantum advantage with boson sampling using an elaborate photonic configuration.

2 At the LIP6 Laboratory (CNRS/Sorbonne University) and the Institut de Recherche en Informatique Fondamentale (CNRS/University of Paris)