Adrian ChoIn October 2019, researchers at Google announced to great fanfare that their embryonic quantum computer had solved a problem that would overwhelm the best supercomputers.
Some said the milestone, known as quantum supremacy, marked the dawn of the age of quantum computing. However, Greg Kuperberg, a mathematician at the University of California, Davis, who specializes in quantum computing, wasn’t so impressed.
He had expected Google to aim for a goal that is less flashy but, he says, far more important.Whether it’s calculating your taxes or making Mario jump a canyon, your computer works its magic by manipulating long strings of bits that can be set to 0 or 1.