Google attains 'quantum supremacy' with chip of the future

San Francisco : Google has reportedly built a quantum computer that is way ahead than world's top supercomputers in calculation - solving tasks in nearly three minutes that would otherwise take current supercomputers 10,000 years to achieve.

According to a report in Financial Times on Friday, a Google research paper has claimed the feat, saying "their processor was able to perform a calculation in three minutes and 20 seconds that would take today's most advanced classical computer, known as Summit (from IBM), approximately 10,000 years".

"To our knowledge, this experiment marks the first computation that can only be performed on a quantum processor," wrote the Google researchers.

In March 2018, Google unveiled its 72-qubit quantum computer chip Bristlecone, saying it was "cautiously optimistic that quantum supremacy can be achieved with Bristlecone".

Not just Google but several tech giants like Microsoft, IBM and Intel have joined the race to build a scalable quantum computer.

Earlier this week, IBM unveiled its quantum computer with 53 qubits.

A quantum computer can solve complex problems that would otherwise take billions of years for today's computers to solve.

This has massive implications for research in health care, energy, environmental systems, smart materials and more.