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Abstract
In a world first, a team led by John Martinis, an experimental physicist at the University of California, Santa Barbara, and Google in Mountain View, California, says that its quantum computer carried out a specific calculation that is beyond the practical capabilities of regular, 'classical' machines (F. Arute et al. In reality, Monroe adds, scientists are yet to show that a programmable quantum computer can solve a useful task that cannot be done any other way, such as by calculating the electronic structure of a particular molecule - a fiendish problem that requires modelling multiple quantum interactions. Another important step, says Aaronson, is demonstrating quantum supremacy in an algorithm that uses a process known as error correction - a method to correct for noise-induced errors that would otherwise ruin a calculation.