All thats need to verify is, is it faster than classical chips? Why do they need some other methods?
Willow quantum chip demonstrates verifiable quantum advantage on hardware
171–180 of 281 posts
Re: Willow quantum chip demonstrates verifiable quantum advantage on hardware
#172Earlier quoted context omitted.
The article states: “...13,000 times faster on Willow than the best classical algorithm on one of the world’s fastest supercomputers...” I agree it's not very precise without knowing which of the world's fastest supercomputers they're talking about, but there was no need to leave out this tidbit.
I don’t understand how these papers get accepted
The field is nascent. The bar is not static.
Re: Willow quantum chip demonstrates verifiable quantum advantage on hardware
#173I think that quantum will be the next bubble
This type of announcement is definitely pumping air into it
Re: Willow quantum chip demonstrates verifiable quantum advantage on hardware
#174Earlier quoted context omitted.
A key result here is the first demonstration of quantum supremacy; from TFA > This is the first time in history that any quantum computer has successfully run a verifiable algorithm that surpasses the ability of supercomputers.
I think I have read that before?
Yes, from this very same FA,
"Back in 2019, we demonstrated that a quantum computer could solve a problem that would take the fastest classical supercomputer thousands of years."
The actual article has much more measured language, and in the conclusion section gives three criteria for "practical quantum advantage":
https://www.nature.com/articles/s41586-025-09526-6
"(1) The observable can be experimentally measured with the proper accuracy, in our case with an SNR above unity. More formally, the observable is in the bounded-error quantum polynomial-time (BQP) class.
(2) The observable lies beyond the reach of both exact classical simulation and heuristic methods that trade accuracy for efficiency.
[...]
(3) The observable should yield practically relevant information about the quantum system.
[...] we have made progress towards (1) and (2). Moreover, a proof-of-principle for (3) is demonstrated with a dynamic learning problem."
So none of the criteria they define for "practical quantum advantage" are fully met as far as I understand it.
The key word is "practical" - you can get quantum advantage from precisely probing a quantum system with enough coherent qubits that it would be intractable on a classical computer. But that's exactly because a quantum computer is a quantum system; and because of superposition and entanglement, a linear increase in the number of qubits means an exponential increase in computational complexity for a classical simulation. So if you're able to implement and probe a quantum system of sufficient complexity (in this case ~40 qubits rather than the thousands it would take for Shor's algorithm), that is ipso facto "quantum advantage".
It's still an impressive engineering feat because of the difficulty in maintaining coherence in the qubits with a precisely programmable gate structure that operates on them, but as far as I can see (and I've just scanned the paper and had a couple of drinks this evening) what it really means is that they've found a way to reliably implement in hardware a quantum system that they can accurately extract information from in a way that would be intractable to simulate on classical machines.
I might well be missing some subtleties because of aforementioned reasons and I'm no expert, but it seems like the press release is unsurprisingly in the grayzone between corporate hype and outright deceit (which as we know is a large and constantly expanding multi-dimensional grayzone of heretofore unimagined fractal shades of gray)
Re: Willow quantum chip demonstrates verifiable quantum advantage on hardware
#175> Quantum computing-enhanced NMR could become a powerful tool in drug discovery, helping determine how potential medicines bind to their targets, or in materials science for characterizing the molecular structure of new materials like polymers, battery components or even the materials that comprise our quantum bits (qubits) There is a section in the article about future real world application, but I feel like these a…
> As a result I have no sense about whether these suggested real world applications are a few years away or 50+ years away. Does anyone?
not really. but that doesn't mean it's not worth striving for. Breakthrough to commercial application are notoriously hard to predict. The only way to find out is to keep pushing at the frontier.
Re: Willow quantum chip demonstrates verifiable quantum advantage on hardware
#176Re: Willow quantum chip demonstrates verifiable quantum advantage on hardware
#177Earlier quoted context omitted.
Good point, I guess that's why I find this comments section boring and not representative of the HN I've known for 16 years: there's a sort of half-remembering it wasn't powerful enough to do something plainly and obviously useful yesterday. Then, we ignore today, and launder that into a gish-gallop of free-association, torturing the meaning of words to shoehorn in the idea that all the science has it wrong and inter…
If you assume everyone else is wrong from the start, then you won't like the comments, sure. And what the hell are you calling a gish gallop? They wrote four sentences explaining a single simple argument. If you design a way to make qubits emulate particle interactions, that's a useful tool, but it's not what people normally think of as a "computer". And whatever you're saying about anyone claiming "all the science h…
The fact an earlier demo was an RNG also, and this demo uses quantum phenomena (qubits) to look at quantum phenomena (molecules) does not mean quantum computing can't be a useful computer, a la a wind tunnel.
It's not that I don't "agree with it", there's nothing to agree with. "Not even wrong", in the Pauli sense.
I'd advise that when you're conjuring thoughts in other people's heads to make them mean, so you can go full gloves off and tell them off for what thoughts were in their head, and motivated their contributions to this forum, you pause, and consider a bit more. Especially in context of where you're encountering the behavior, say, a online discussion forum vs. a dinner party where you're observing a heated discussion among your children.
Re: Willow quantum chip demonstrates verifiable quantum advantage on hardware
#178I would be quite worried about advances in quantum computers if I had any Bitcoin after watching this DEFCON talk: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OkVYJx1iLNs
Re: Willow quantum chip demonstrates verifiable quantum advantage on hardware
#179> demonstrates the first-ever algorithm to achieve verifiable quantum advantage on hardware. Am I crazy or have I heard this same announcement from Google and others like 5 times at this point?
This is as would be expected if it were real. Advantage isn't a black and white thing, because the comparison starts against 'any task done the best we know how to do using the most resources we happen to be willing to throw at it, even if we don't have a means to check that the output was correct', and ends at 'useful output you can formally verify where you have a strong reason to believe no classical algorithm would be effective.'
Re: Willow quantum chip demonstrates verifiable quantum advantage on hardware
#180I would be quite worried about advances in quantum computers if I had any Bitcoin after watching this DEFCON talk: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OkVYJx1iLNs
Every time I mention quantum computing as a threat to crypto (which I have been for years), I get downvoted to oblivion. I guess we have a lot of HODLers here. A bet on crypto is a bet against quantum computing.