Quantum Supremacy: Regular Computers Take on Google's Lead
Google's Sycamore quantum computer was able to validate the output of a random distribution in 3 minutes and 20 seconds. That is really impressive. Turns out Pan Zhang from Beijing was capable of solving the same output with a new algorithm.
Matthew Sparkes writes at the New Scientist
Now, Pan Zhang at the Chinese Academy of Sciences in Beijing and his colleagues have created an improved algorithm for a non-quantum computer that can solve the random sampling problem much faster, challenging Google’s claim that a quantum computer is the only practical way to do it. The researchers found that they could skip some of the calculations without affecting the final output, which dramatically reduces the computational requirements compared with the previous best algorithms.
The researchers ran their algorithm on a cluster of 512 GPUs (graphics processing units), completing the task in around 15 hours. While this is significantly longer than Sycamore, they say it shows that a classical computer approach remains practical.
It's nice to see that people are trying to make activities like this more widely available. I hope we can solve more of the world health problems his way.