A quantum computer has completed a task with fewer resources than any classical computer could ever match, according to a study by researchers at the University of Texas at Austin and Quantinuum. The researchers report that the results, published in the pre-print server arXiv, represents the first unconditional demonstration that quantum machines can store and process information in ways no classical system can reproduce. First, some context and background. Physicists have argued for years about whether the exponential potential of quantum mechanics can ever be fully harnessed. Bell inequality tests, which won the 2022 Nobel Prize in Physics, revealed correlations between entangled particles that no classical system could explain. But these experiments did not involve difficult computations. More recently, “quantum supremacy” claims from Google in 2019 and teams in China that followed rested on complexity assumptions. Critics countered that improved classical algorithms could narrow or erase the advantage. The new study, led by William Kretschmer, an assistant professor of computer science, at UT Austin, and colleagues, takes a different approach. The approach proves mathematically that a specific storage task can be done with 12 qubits on a quantum processor, while any classical method would require between 62 and 382 bits of memory. No improvement in conventional hardware or algorithms can bridge that gap.

Full report : Quantinuum’s 12-qubit quantum computing system achieves unassailable quantum advantage.

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