A new quantum computer has shattered the world record set by Google’s Sycamore machine. The new 56-qubit H2-1 computer smashed ‘quantum supremacy’ record by 100-fold.
Between January and June 2024, Quantinuum, a computing company, ran multiple experiments on its new 56-qubit H2-1 computer to benchmark the machine’s performance levels and the quality of the qubits used.
“We are entirely focused on the path to universal fault tolerant quantum computers,” said Ilyas Khan, Chief Product Officer.
“This objective has not changed, but what has changed in the past few months is clear evidence of the advances that have been made possible due to the work and the investment that has been made over many, many years.”
Error correction performance threshold
The company maintained that with its long-time partner Microsoft, we hit an error correction performance threshold that many believed was still years away.
The System Model H2 became the first – and only – quantum computer in the world capable of creating and computing with highly reliable logical (error corrected) qubits, according to Quantinuum.
The collaboration tackled a well-known algorithm, Random Circuit Sampling (RCS), and measured the quality of our results with a suite of tests including the linear cross entropy benchmark (XEB) – an approach first made famous by Google in 2019 in a bid to demonstrate “quantum supremacy”.
Results on H2-1 are excellent
An XEB score close to 0 says your results are noisy – and do not utilize the full potential of quantum computing. In contrast, the closer an XEB score is to 1, the more your results demonstrate the power of quantum computing. The results on H2-1 are excellent, revealing, and worth exploring in a little detail, said the company.
“Results show that whilst the full benefits of fault tolerant quantum computers have not changed in nature, they may be reachable earlier than was originally expected,” added Khan.
He explained that there will be tangible benefits to our customers in their day-to-day operations as quantum computers start to perform in ways that are not classically simulatable.
“We have an exciting few months ahead of us as we unveil some of the applications that will start to matter in this context with our partners across a number of sectors.”
Able to run circuits on all 56 qubits in H2-1
In 2019, Google’s Sycamore quantum computer registered an XEB result of approximately 0.002 with the 53 superconducting qubits built into Sycamore. It was demonstrated Sycamore can complete a calculation in 200 seconds that would have taken the most powerful supercomputer at the time 10,000 years to finish.
But in the new study, Quantinuum scientists achieved an XEB score of approximately 0.35. This means the H2 quantum computer can produce results without producing an error 35% of the time, reported Live Science.
Quantinuum maintained that they have been able to run circuits on all 56 qubits in H2-1 that are deep enough to challenge high-fidelity classical simulation while achieving an estimated XEB score of ~0.35.
This >100x improvement implies the following: even for circuits large and complex enough to frustrate all known classical simulation methods, the H2 quantum computer produces results without making even a single error about 35% of the time.
In contrast to past announcements associated with XEB experiments, 35% is a significant step towards the idealized 100% fidelity limit in which the computational advantage of quantum computers is clearly in sight.
ABOUT THE EDITOR
Prabhat Ranjan Mishra Prabhat, an alumnus of the Indian Institute of Mass Communication, is a tech and defense journalist. While he enjoys writing on modern weapons and emerging tech, he has also reported on global politics and business. He has been previously associated with well-known media houses, including the International Business Times (Singapore Edition) and ANI.