The speed of supercomputers directly influences technology in important industries ranging from military defense to healthcare. While many might think of supercomputers as large systems taking up massive rooms or in the archetype of IBM’s Watson, these devices are becoming increasingly condensed and exponentially more powerful. As a vanguard behind the rapid advance of this technology, Google has announced it’s built a computer far more powerful than any of its predecessors.
Dubbed Sycamore, the supercomputer is miles ahead of its competition. Just how fast is this system? According to the scientific journal Nature, Google’s supercomputer performed a random-number generation in 200 seconds. That may not sound all that impressive until that performance is compared to that of a current supercomputer, which would take 10,000 years to perform the same action.
For decades, scientists and programmers alike have known quantum mechanics will play a role in the continued development of computers. Sycamore is part of the Google Quantum Supremacy project, which the company has been working on since 2006. Today, Sycamore stands as a seminal achievement that will open doors for the continued advancement of quantum computing.