An anonymous reader quotes a report from Ars Technica:

> Back in 2019, Google made waves by claiming it had achieved what has been called " [1]quantum supremacy " -- the ability of a quantum computer to perform operations that would take a wildly impractical amount of time to simulate on standard computing hardware. That claim proved to be controversial, in that the operations were little more than a benchmark that involved getting the quantum computer to behave like a quantum computer; separately, improved ideas about how to perform the simulation on a supercomputer cut the time required down significantly.

>

> But Google is back with a new exploration of the benchmark, described in a paper [2]published in Nature on Wednesday . It uses the benchmark to identify what it calls a phase transition in the performance of its quantum processor and [3]uses it to identify conditions where the processor can operate with low noise . Taking advantage of that, they again show that, even giving classical hardware every potential advantage, it would take a supercomputer a dozen years to simulate things.



[1] https://hardware.slashdot.org/story/19/09/20/2158233/google-reportedly-attains-quantum-supremacy

[2] http://dx.doi.org/10.1038/s41586-024-07998-6

[3] https://arstechnica.com/science/2024/10/google-identifies-low-noise-phase-transition-in-its-quantum-processor/