China said it has created a quantum processor no worse than the acclaimed Google Willow

A week ago, Google announced the creation of the world’s most powerful quantum processor, Willow, with 105 superconducting qubits. This processor supports advanced error correction technology, solving one of the most challenging problems in quantum computing. Only seven days have passed, and Chinese scientists announced the creation of a quantum processor Zuchongzhi 3.0 (“Zuchongzhi-3”), which, according to them, is in no way inferior to Google Willow. China is not lagging behind the United States in quantum technologies.

105-qubit Chinese processor Zuchongzhi 3.0 (“Zuchongzhi-3”) based on superconducting qubits. Image source: CCTV

Quantum computing promises exponential speedup due to features of quantum mechanics such as superposition and entanglement of quantum bits, called qubits. Most often we are talking about simulations. For example, quantum systems (processors and computers) can reproduce the behavior of atoms in crystal lattices, allowing experiments to be carried out by “calculating the answer” without the use of physical samples. In addition, quantum platforms cope well with optimization problems, where the processing of a huge amount of data is replaced by the transition of a quantum system to a state with minimal energy (the so-called quantum annealing).

In both cases, be it computation or simulation, error correction requires the most resources. One of the popular methods of dealing with them is surface code, which is a matrix of physical qubits. The size of this matrix directly affects the accuracy and speed of calculations.

Google claims (without further explanation yet) that it has made significant breakthroughs in using shallow code to correct errors. In turn, Chinese scientists from the University of Science and Technology of China (USTC), in their article, which has not yet been peer-reviewed, stated that they also made a breakthrough in this direction and intend to develop their technologies.

In a few months, the Zuchongzhi 3.0 processor may demonstrate a level of error correction that exceeds Google’s achievements, based on statements by Chinese researchers.