Computational tasks that Jiuzhang’s quantum computer can solve include mining exploration and data mining, biological information, network analysis and chemical modeling research, the researchers said.
The research team, led by Pan Jianwei, a physicist from the University of Science and Technology of China who is dubbed the “Quantum Father” in the country, published the study in the journal Physical Review Letters.
“Our work is a step toward solving real-world computational problems using current midsize quantum computers,” the study team said.
“In the age of big data, the amount of global data is growing exponentially, doubling every two years. It makes no sense if huge amounts of data are not mined,” Pan Jianwei said. Currently, the traditional computer development model is limited, and supercomputers consume huge amounts of energy. According to Pan Jianwei, the importance of “jiuzhang” lies in improving computing power without increasing power consumption.
The science team solved complex computer equations that challenged traditional computers by using over 200,000 samples to solve the mathematical problem.
During the experiment, the researchers used, for the first time, a quantum computer to implement and accelerate the solution of two algorithms – random search and simulated annealing – commonly used in the field of artificial intelligence. .
It takes the world’s fastest conventional supercomputer 700 seconds to analyze each computational sample, which means it would take the algorithm almost 5 years to process the same number of samples.
However, the Jiuzhang quantum computer solved the algorithm in less than a second.
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In traditional computing, a bit represents either a zero or a one as the basic unit of information, while a qubit goes even further in that a bit can represent either a zero or a one or both at the same time – which is the simplest. arithmetic expressions in quantum mechanics.
Because the basic information of a quantum computer can represent all possibilities at once, it is theoretically much faster and more powerful than the ordinary computers we use in our daily lives.
The Jiuzhang quantum computer, named after a Chinese text on mathematics dating back around 2,000 years, uses photons of light as a physical medium for computation. Unlike other quantum computers, it does not need to operate at extremely low temperatures and can work stably for a longer time.
However, quantum computers only work in very cold and isolated environments to avoid confusion and error, because the size of the subatomic particles that the quantum computer depends on in its operations are very fragile and their lifespan is very short.
It is worth noting that the company “Google” announced the development of a quantum computer capable of calculating a certain amount of information in just 200 seconds, so supercomputers can calculate this same amount of information only in 10 000 years.
However, China’s “Juzhang” quantum computer is an achievement on the road to universal quantum computing, also known as “quantum supremacy”, which guarantees tremendous speed in this field.
No conventional computer can perform the same task in a reasonable time, and improvements in algorithm or conventional computer hardware are unlikely to exceed that speed.
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