Journal Article

Quantum supremacy using a programmable superconducting processor

Boixo, Sergio, Quintana, Chris, Rieffel, Eleanor G., Gidney, Craig, Mi, Xiao, Megrant, Anthony, Martinis, John M., Buell, David A., Guerin, Keith, Vainsencher, Amit, Ho, Alan, Brandao, Fernando G. S. L., Smelyanskiy, Vadim, Trevithick, Matthew D., Michielsen, Kristel, Klimov, Paul V., Isakov, Sergei V., Jiang, Zhang, Graff, Rob, Niu, Murphy Yuezhen, Mutus, Josh, Yao, Z. Jamie, Collins, Roberto, Lindmark, Mike, Platt, John C., Zalcman, Adam, Kelly, Julian, Rubin, Nicholas C., Sank, Daniel, White, Theodore, Dunsworth, Andrew, Jeffrey, Evan, Arute, Frank, Farhi, Edward, Kafri, Dvir, Ostby, Eric, Landhuis, David, Kostritsa, Fedor, Lyakh, Dmitry, Fowler, Austin, Roushan, Pedram, Habegger, Steve, Huang, Trent, Foxen, Brooks, Humble, Travis S., Hartmann, Michael J., Sung, Kevin J., Biswas, Rupak, Knysh, Sergey, Bacon, Dave, Hoffmann, Markus, Satzinger, Kevin J., Burkett, Brian, Mandrà, Salvatore, Arya, Kunal, Lucero, Erik, McEwen, Matthew, Chiaro, Ben, Courtney, William, Babbush, Ryan, Petukhov, Andre, Yeh, Ping, Neven, Hartmut, Chen, Yu, Harrigan, Matthew P., Giustina, Marissa, Bardin, Joseph C., Korotkov, Alexander, McClean

2019

Overview

The promise of quantum computers is that certain computational tasks might be executed exponentially faster on a quantum processor than on a classical processor 1 . A fundamental challenge is to build a high-fidelity processor capable of running quantum algorithms in an exponentially large computational space. Here we report the use of a processor with programmable superconducting qubits 2 – 7 to create quantum states on 53 qubits, corresponding to a computational state-space of dimension 2 53 (about 10 16 ). Measurements from repeated experiments sample the resulting probability distribution, which we verify using classical simulations. Our Sycamore processor takes about 200 seconds to sample one instance of a quantum circuit a million times—our benchmarks currently indicate that the equivalent task for a state-of-the-art classical supercomputer would take approximately 10,000 years. This dramatic increase in speed compared to all known classical algorithms is an experimental realization of quantum supremacy 8 – 14 for this specific computational task, heralding a much-anticipated computing paradigm. Quantum supremacy is demonstrated using a programmable superconducting processor known as Sycamore, taking approximately 200 seconds to sample one instance of a quantum circuit a million times, which would take a state-of-the-art supercomputer around ten thousand years to compute.

• Publisher: Nature Publishing Group UK,Nature Publishing Group
• Subject: 639/766/483 / 639/766/483/481 / Algorithms / Benchmarks / Circuits / Computer applications / Computer simulation / Computers / Entropy / Equipment and supplies / Error correction & detection / Humanities and Social Sciences / Microprocessors / multidisciplinary / Probability / Probability distribution / Quantum computers / Quantum computing / quantum information / quantum physics / Qubits (quantum computing) / Science / Science (multidisciplinary) / Superconductivity / Superconductors