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IPFS News Link • Technology: Computer Hardware

Google claims its quantum computer can do the impossible in 200 seconds

• CNN Business

The speed achieved by the computer represents a breakthrough called "quantum supremacy," according to a blog post from the company and an accompanying article in the scientific journal Nature.

The results announced Wednesday herald the rise of quantum computers, which can store and process much more information than their classical cousins by tapping into the powerful forces contained in the field of physics known as quantum mechanics.

One big difference: Normal computers use data that exist in only one state at a time — a one, or a zero. Quantum computers use quantum bits, or qubits, which can simultaneously be any combination of zero and one. The difference means much faster processing speeds.

Google (GOOGL) will now try to build "a fault-tolerant quantum computer" as quickly as possible. The company sees applications in designing lightweight batteries for cars and airplanes, as well as new medicines.

"Achieving the necessary computational capabilities will still require years of hard engineering and scientific work. But we see a path clearly now, and we're eager to move ahead," it said in the post. 

Quantum critics

The speed experiment devised by Google was criticized by some experts and rival companies after the results leaked online ahead of their official publication date.

IBM (IBM) said in a blog post Monday that Google had overestimated the difficulty of the computing task. Instead of 10,000 years, IBM argued the problem could be solved by a classical computer in just 2.5 days.