Quantum supremacy: Who will win the race–Google or IBM?

NEW DELHI : Researchers at Google say they have landed a major breakthrough in the field of quantum computing to achieve the haloed quantum supremacy. In a research paper published in scientific journal Nature, Google claims to have used a quantum machine powered by their fully programmable Sycamore chip consisting of 54 qubits to successfully carry out an experimental computation in 200 seconds. Google claims, to carry out the same computation a supercomputer would take thousands of years .

A quantum computing is very unlike the traditional computer. Unlike modern day computing where a sequence of bits (binary digits used as fundamental unit of computing) can exist in a state of either 0 or 1, qubits (quantum version of bits used by quantum computers) are not restricted to be in one of the two states, and can be both 0 and 1 simultaneously.