Mark Mattingley-Scott
Contributor
Marcus Doherty
Contributor
As the quantum computing industry continues to push forward, so do the goal posts.
A long-sought objective was to attain quantum “supremacy” — demonstrating that a quantum computer could solve a calculation that no traditional computer on Earth could do — without requiring a practical benefit.
Google claimed to reach that goal with its landmark scientific paper in 2019, but IBM notably expressed skepticism. In any case, it was an exercise in computer science that was not of any practical relevance in the real world.
Since the Google announcement, the industry intensified its efforts in attaining quantum “advantage,” which is defined as achieving a business or scientific advantage by exceeding the computing capacity of the largest supercomputers in a relevant application.
As a reference point for comparison and benchmarking, it was certainly more useful than quantum supremacy. Quantum advantage is often connected to achieving major breakthroughs in drug discovery, financial trading or battery development.
However, quantum advantage ignores one important point: Should we really wait around for million-qubit quantum steampunk g …
