China May Have Just Taken the Lead in the Quantum Computing Race

Participants view a quantum computing prototype model during the 2021 Quantum Industry Conference in Hefei, China, Sept. 18, 2021. XINHUA VIA GETTY IMAGES / HAN XU

READ NOWBy Peter W. Singer and Thomas Corbett

China’s record-shattering processor is 1 million times faster than what Google achieved three years ago–but we are years from the finish line.

• QUANTUM COMPUTING

China may have taken the lead in the race to practical quantum computing with a recent announcement that it has shattered a record for solving a complex problem.

In 2019, Google reported that its 53-qubit Sycamore processor had completed in 3.3 minutes a task that would have taken a traditional supercomputer at least 2.5 days. Last October, China’s 66-qubit Zuchongzhi 2 quantum processor reportedly completed the same task 1 million times faster. That processor was developed by a team of researchers from the Chinese Academy of Sciences Center for Excellence in Quantum Information and Quantum Physics, in conjunction with the Shanghai Institute of Technical Physics and the Shanghai Institute of Microsystem and Information Technology. 

Traditional supercomputers like those of the U.S. military and the People’s Liberation Army’s 56th Research Institute are used to conduct complex simulations for equipment design, process images and signals to spot targets and points of interest, and analyze oceans of data to understand hidden trends and connections. But some tasks remain time and resource intensive, for even the tiniest computing bits require time to flip between 1 and 0.

Superconducting quantum computers can bypass physical limits by creating a superposition of the 1 and 0 values. Essentially, standard computing bits must be either a 1 or a 0. But in extremely low temperatures, the physical properties of matter undergo significant changes. Superconducting quantum computers take advantage of these changes to create qubits (quantum bits), which are not limited by the processing hurdles that traditional computers face. Qubits can be both 1 or 0, simultaneously.This promises to speed up computing immensely, enabling assaults on henceforth uncrackable problems like decrypting currently unbreakable codes, pushing AI and machine learning to new heights, and designing entirely new materials, chemicals, and medicines.

The world’s scientific and military powers are spending billions of dollars in the race to turn this promise into reality. China has notched several notable advancements in recent years. In 2020, the University of Science and Technology of China, home of leading Chinese quantum computing scholar Pan Jianwei, conducted the first space-based quantum communications, using the Micius satellite to create an ultra-secure data link between two ground stations separated by more than 1,000 miles…...More Here

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