Chinese scientists claim record smashing quantum computing breakthrough
- Paper says JiuZhang 3 is a million times faster than its predecessor and light years ahead of the world’s fastest supercomputer
- Researchers say that despite the advance, there is still a long way to go before the technology replaces classical computers
The JiuZhang 3 prototype also smashed the record set by its predecessor in the series, with a one million-fold increase in calculation speed, according to a paper published on Tuesday by the peer-reviewed journal Physical Review Letters.
The research team is led by Pan Jianwei, a leading scientist in China’s national quantum research programme, from the University of Science and Technology of China at Hefei, in the eastern province of Anhui.
The first Jiuzhang machine – named after an ancient mathematics textbook – was built by Pan’s team in 2020. The series uses photons – tiny particles that travel at the speed of light – as the physical medium for calculations, with each one carrying a qubit, the basic unit of quantum information.
After increasing the number of photons from 76 to 113 in the first two versions of the machine, respectively, Pan and his team have achieved an advance to 255 in the latest iteration.
