Google Performs First Quantum Simulation of a Chemical Reaction (newscientist.com) 9
An anonymous reader quotes a report from NewScientist: Google researchers have used a quantum computer to simulate a chemical reaction for the first time. The reaction is a simple one, but this marks a step towards finding a practical use for quantum computers. A team at Google has used the company's Sycamore device to perform the first accurate quantum simulation of a chemical reaction. Sycamore achieved quantum supremacy in 2019 when it carried out a calculation that would be impossible for a classical computer to perform in a practical amount of time. For the computer's latest feat, the researchers simulated a diazene molecule, which consists of two nitrogen atoms and two hydrogen atoms, undergoing a reaction in which the hydrogen atoms move into different configurations around the nitrogens. The quantum simulation agreed with simulations the researchers performed on classical computers to check their work. The researchers published their findings in the journal Science.
Error Correction (Score:5, Informative)
''The quantum simulation agreed with simulations the researchers performed on classical computers to check their work.''
Which may be somewhat misleading.
'' Current quantum computers are prone to errors, so the group paired Googleâ(TM)s quantum computer with a classical one. Each time the circuit of qubits calculated an energy, the classical computer analyzed the results and suggested new parameters. The cycle repeated until the quantum computer settled on a minimum value, which corresponded to the ground-state energy of the molecular system. The team also applied two different checks on the calculation results in an attempt to catch and correct errors.
Quantum-computing expert James D. Whitfield of Dartmouth College and Sahil Gulania, a PhD student at the University of Southern California, wrote in an email that âoethe Google work is a phenomenal demonstration of their hardwareâ but does not show any benefit for Hartree-Fock calculations compared with classical computers. Google quantum chemist Ryan Babbush agrees. He says this work is helping computer scientists learn how to handle quantum-computing errors, which will help them perform more complex calculations in the future.''
https://cen.acs.org/materials/... [acs.org]
Simulation vs. reality (Score:2)
This simulation is being done on a quantum computer. In real life, chemical reactions are composed of a collection of quantum interactions. At what point does the simulation become indistinguishable from reality?
Breaking news! (Score:2)
Scientist have "almost" been able to replicate the function of a basic 1964 digital calculator on a quantum computer!
Who knows what the future will bring?
IBM claim quantum supremacy never happened (Score:1)
Quote:
"The term “quantum supremacy,” as proposed by John Preskill in 2012, was to describe the point where quantum computers can do things that classical computers can’t, this threshold has not been met."
https://www.ibm.com/blogs/rese... [ibm.com]
Re: (Score:2)
And they are right.
There is no practical use for QCs (Score:2)
Because they happen to be extremely inferior to classical computers at the sizes they can actually be built. And that is unlikely ti change anytime soon and quite possible will never change. The whole approach does not scale.
How About Working The Other Way? (Score:2)
But the fact that this is the application of quantum computing techniques to what are essentially quantum physics [or perhaps in this case, quantum chemistry] questions got me thinking. Does anyone know if there ha