China Claims to Have Taken Lead in Quantum Race with 66-Qubits Processor

(TechSpot) According to Chinese researchers of the University of Science and Technology of China, the Zuchongzhi quantum computer they have built is two to three times faster than Google’s Sycamore processor.
Quantum supremacy or quantum advantage is achieved when a quantum computer can solve a problem that no standard computer can in a feasible amount of time. This was first accomplished by Google with the Sycamore, a 53-qubit quantum computer that completed a calculation in 200 seconds that would take a normal PC 10,000 years.
Since then, other organizations like Honeywell and the University of Science and Technology of China developed quantum machines capable of outperforming Sycamore. Now, the latter has done it once again, with the Zuchongzhi quantum processor, a two-dimensional 66-qubit processor with 110 couplers.
To show its quantum supremacy, the Zuchongzhi took a test consisting in performing “random quantum circuits sampling for benchmarking, up to a system size of 56 qubits and 20 cycles.” To solve it, the most powerful supercomputer would take about eight years, but the Chinese quantum processor did it in just 72 minutes.
The scientific paper published by the University of Science and Technology of China is available for everyone to read.