A research team from the University of Science and Technology of China (USTC) unveiled Zuchongzhi-3, a 105-qubit superconducting quantum computing prototype, which operates at speeds exceeding current supercomputers by 15 orders of magnitude.
USTC unveils Zuchongzhi-3: A lbig advancement in quantum computing
USTC has made significant advancements in random quantum circuit sampling with Zuchongzhi-3, which is equipped with 105 qubits and 182 couplers. The machine performs computations 1015 times faster than the world’s most powerful supercomputer and one million times faster than Google’s latest published quantum results. This achievement builds on the success of Zuchongzhi-2 and was led by Jianwei Pan, Xiaobo Zhu, Chengzhi Peng, and other researchers from China and abroad, with findings published as a cover article in Physical Review Letters.
The road to quantum supremacy
Quantum supremacy is defined as the ability of a quantum computer to perform tasks beyond the capabilities of classical computers. In 2019, Google’s 53-qubit Sycamore processor completed a random circuit sampling task in 200 seconds, a task estimated to require 10,000 years on the fastest supercomputer at that time. However, in 2023, USTC demonstrated advanced classical algorithms completing this task in 14 seconds using over 1,400 A100 GPUs. The Frontier supercomputer has since reduced that completion time to 1.6 seconds, challenging Google’s claim of quantum supremacy.
USTC first achieved rigorously proven quantum supremacy with the Jiuzhang photonic quantum computing prototype in 2020, followed by a superconducting demonstration using Zuchongzhi-2 in 2021. In 2023, the team’s 255-photon Jiuzhang-3 demonstrated quantum supremacy surpassing classical supercomputers by 1016 orders of magnitude. In October 2024, Google’s 67-qubit Sycamore processor showed quantum supremacy by outperforming classical supercomputers by nine orders of magnitude.
Enhancements in Zuchongzhi-3
Zuchongzhi-3 features significant enhancements over the 66-qubit Zuchongzhi-2, boasting a coherence time of 72 μs, single-qubit gate fidelity of 99.90%, two-qubit gate fidelity of 99.62%, and readout fidelity of 99.13%. These improvements facilitate more complex operations.
To gauge its capabilities, USTC conducted an 83-qubit, 32-layer random circuit sampling task, resulting in computational speeds eclipsing the current fastest supercomputer by 15 orders of magnitude and exceeding Google’s latest results by six orders of magnitude, establishing the strongest quantum computational advantage in superconducting systems to date.
Following the achievement of quantum computational advantage with Zuchongzhi-3, the research team is advancing areas such as quantum error correction, quantum entanglement, quantum simulation, and quantum chemistry. They implemented a 2D grid qubit architecture to enhance qubit interconnectivity and data transfer rates. By utilizing this architecture, researchers are integrating surface code and developing quantum error correction with a distance-7 surface code, with plans to escalate this to distances of 9 and 11.
The USTC team’s work has received acclaim, with one journal reviewer stating it benchmarks a new superconducting quantum computer that demonstrates state-of-the-art performance and represents a significant upgrade from Zuchongzhi-2. Physics Magazine also featured an article exploring the innovations and impacts of this study.
The research team includes Pan Jianwei, Zhu Xiaobo, and Peng Chengzhi, collaborating with the Shanghai Research Center for Quantum Sciences, Henan Key Laboratory of Quantum Information and Cryptography, China National Institute of Metrology, Jinan Institute of Quantum Technology, and the Institute of Theoretical Physics under the Chinese Academy of Sciences.
Featured image credit: USTC
