What kind of supercomputer google uses

Google says an advanced computer has achieved "quantum supremacy" for the first time, surpassing the performance of conventional devices. The technology giant's Sycamore quantum processor was able to perform a specific task in seconds that would take the world's best supercomputer 10, years to complete.

Scientists have been working on quantum computers for decades because they promise much faster speeds. The result appears in Nature journal. In classical computers, the unit of information is called a "bit" and can have a value of either 1 or 0.

But its equivalent in a quantum system - the qubit quantum bit - can be both 1 and 0 at the same time. Philathong, I. Zacharov and J. Biamonte, 30 August , Quantum. DOI: Email address is optional. If provided, your email will not be published or shared. More on SciTechDaily. Leave a comment Cancel reply Email address is optional. Told you it was weird.

Not only that, but multiple qubits can be ganged together through another quantum phenomenon called entanglement. That lets a quantum computer explore a vast number of possible solutions to a problem at the same time. In principle, a quantum computer's performance grows exponentially: add one more qubit, and you've doubled the number of solutions you can examine in one fell swoop.

For that reason, quantum computing engineers are working to increase the number of qubits in their machines. That's even faster than the single exponential improvement charted for classical computer chips by Moore's Law. Google's machine had 54 qubits, though one wasn't working right, so only 53 were available. That happens to match the number in IBM's most powerful quantum computer. But qubit count isn't everything.

Unavoidable instabilities cause qubits to lose their data. To counteract that problem, researchers are also working on error correction techniques to let a calculation sidestep those problems. IBM is a major quantum computing fan, but it questioned Google's prematurely released results in a blog post Monday.

They suggested different algorithms and a different classical computer design in a preprint paper of their own. Google said it welcomes improvements to quantum computer simulation techniques but said its overall result is "prohibitively hard for even the world's fastest supercomputer, with more double exponential growth to come.

We've already peeled away from classical computers, onto a totally different trajectory. And you can try for yourself if you like. The squares represent functions that can be performed on a quantum bit—a qubit—inside a large, silvery cylinder nearby. Of the myriad functions on offer, some cause the bit to flip from 1 to 0 or from 0 to 1 ; one makes it rotate around an axis.

Another square on the display reveals the state of the qubit, represented by what looks like a lollipop moving around inside a sphere, its stick anchored in the center. As it moves, numbers beside it oscillate between 1. This is one of the strengths of qubits: they do not have to be the all-or-nothing 1 or 0 of binary bits but can occupy states in between. Although the final readout from a qubit is a 1 or 0, the existence of all of those intermediary steps means it can be difficult or impossible for a classical computer to do the same calculation.

To the uninitiated, this process may appear a bit like magic—a wave of the hands, a tap of a touch screen and, presto, a rabbit is pulled from a quantum hat. Google has invited me here—along with a select group of other journalists—to pull back the curtain on this wizardry, to prove it is not magical at all. On the right half of the screen, squiggly lines display waveforms that correspond to the functions being performed on the qubits. Next to that section is a box about the size of a desktop printer, which sends those waveforms as electrical pulses through wires and into the silver cylinder.

If the cylinder were open, one would see a series of six chambers, arranged in layers like a wire-festooned upside-down wedding cake. Each chamber is chilled to a temperature significantly colder than the one above it; the bottommost layer is a frigid 15 millikelvins, nearly times as cold as the depths of outer space.

Wires passing through the successive stages relay control signals from the warm outside world and pass back results from the chamber. That chamber is in vacuum, shielded from the light and heat that would otherwise disrupt the delicate qubits, which sit on a chip at the end of all the wires, isolated in the dark and cold.

Each qubit is about 0. But chilled and hidden away from external influences, each becomes a superconductor that lets electrons flow freely, acting as if it were a single atom so that the laws of quantum mechanics scale up to dictate its behavior.