China claims quantum leap with machine declared a million times greater than Google’s Sycamore
- Physicist Pan Jianwei says his team achieved quantum supremacy but ‘further verification’ is necessary
- Pan’s team has received generous and consistent financial support from the Chinese government
Pan Jianwei, a physicist from the University of Science and Technology of China, announced at a lecture at Westlake University, Hangzhou, on September 5 that a new machine had recently achieved “quantum supremacy” one million times greater than the record currently held by Sycamore, a quantum computer built by Google.
Sycamore completed in about 200 seconds a calculation that would keep the fastest computer on Earth busy for 10,000 years, according to a paper published by Google researchers last year.
Pan’s claim was reported by Anhui Daily and other media on the mainland.
Pan’s team issued a statement on Weibo on Tuesday that they were “deeply worried” by these reports because Pan had been quoted out of context.
The results were still preliminary, and there was “no 100 per cent guarantee until further verification,” Pan was quoted as saying in the statement.
