D-Wave claims 'quantum supremacy' in real-world problem

D-Wave, a quantum computing company, announced on Wednesday that its annealing quantum computer can outperform one of the world's top classical supercomputers in solving a complex magnetic materials simulation problem.

"D-Wave quantum computer has solved an important, real-world problem remarkably better, faster and with greater energy efficiency than possible with a classical computer. It's the first demonstration of computational supremacy on a useful problem, the problem was in the area of material simulation," said Alan Baratz, the president and chief executive of D-Wave.

The company published a paper in the journal Science, titled "Beyond-classical computation in quantum simulation," which outlines how quantum annealers can solve practical problems beyond the reach of classical computation.

"D-Wave's quantum computer performed the most complex simulation in minutes and with a level of accuracy that would take nearly one million years using the supercomputer," said the company on its website.

However, some research groups have challenged D-Wave's claims, arguing that even an ordinary laptop can perform similar calculations, as reported by New Scientist.

In response to the skepticism, Alan Baratz countered that other physicists' papers published this week "do not come close to achieving what we accomplished on the D-Wave Advantage2 quantum computer, and their claims are confusing the public."