Revolutionary photonic computer surpasses supercomputer

Recently, the Chinese scientists shared some details regarding the new version of the “Jiuzhang” photonic quantum computer. Firstly, this machine was presented almost six years ago, and the new version is the fourth iteration of the system with exceptional processing power. The newly presented system can conduct synthetic calculations in only a fraction of a second, while a supercomputer couldn’t cope with the same task even over the lifetime of the universe.

Key aspects of developing a new photonic machine

The new machine, as well as all the previous versions, were developed by the researchers from the University of Science and Technology of China. According to the available information, Zhuzhang 4.0 can perform Gaussian Boson Sampling (GBS), which is a very challenging task for all the standard supercomputers. The new approach is based on the specialized photonic processor, which is specifically optimized for the completion of certain computer tasks. Researchers specify that this machine can perform calculations much faster than all the available computers, including the El Capitan supercomputer.

Jiuzhang 4.0 can manipulate quantum states of nearly 3,050 photos, whereas the previous version can operate with only 255 photos. It is a significant improvement when compared with Jiuzhang 3.0. The time-frame during which one result is generated is around 25.6 microseconds, which gives statistically significant samples almost instantly. Such a huge improvement was possible due to the minimization of optical losses.

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