IBM: the era of quantum utility is near

In the fall of 2019, Google researchers claimed the world’s first demonstration of quantum supremacy: their 53-qubit Sycamore quantum computer based on superconducting circuits took 200 seconds to perform a calculation that the researchers estimated would take a state-of-the-art supercomputer 10,000 days to complete.

That claim was challenged from two different angles. IBM said one of its powerful supercomputers could actually solve that problem in 2.5 days. That’s still significantly slower than the Sycamore, but it’s not unreasonable to suppose that a more efficient algorithm will be found to close the gap. To claim quantum supremacy, said IBM, you need to secure much more distance between the classical and the quantum calculation. That criticism proved to hold water. Last year, Chinese researchers were able to perform the calculation on a GPU-powered supercomputer in a little over 300 seconds.