Nanotechnology Now

Our NanoNews Digest Sponsors
Heifer International



Home > Press > Quantum supremacy milestone harnesses ORNL Summit supercomputer

ORNL researcher Travis Humble was part of a team that demonstrated that a quantum computer can outperform a classical computer at certain tasks, a feat known as quantum supremacy.

CREDIT
Carlos Jones/Oak Ridge National Laboratory, U.S. Dept. of Energy
ORNL researcher Travis Humble was part of a team that demonstrated that a quantum computer can outperform a classical computer at certain tasks, a feat known as quantum supremacy. CREDIT Carlos Jones/Oak Ridge National Laboratory, U.S. Dept. of Energy

Abstract:
A joint research team from Google Inc., NASA Ames Research Center, and the Department of Energy's Oak Ridge National Laboratory has demonstrated that a quantum computer can outperform a classical computer at certain tasks, a feat known as quantum supremacy.

Quantum supremacy milestone harnesses ORNL Summit supercomputer

Oak Ridge, TN | Posted on October 25th, 2019

Quantum computers use the laws of quantum mechanics and units known as qubits to greatly increase the threshold at which information can be transmitted and processed. Whereas traditional "bits" have a value of either 0 or 1, qubits are encoded with values of both 0 and 1, or any combination thereof, allowing for a vast number of possibilities for storing data.

While still in their early stages, quantum systems have the potential to be exponentially more powerful than today's leading classical computing systems and promise to revolutionize research in materials, chemistry, high-energy physics, and across the scientific spectrum. The team's results, published today in Nature, provide a proof of concept for quantum supremacy and establish a baseline comparison of time-to-solution and energy consumption.

"This achievement of quantum supremacy is a testament to the strength of American innovation, and DOE's Labs are helping lead the way in this groundbreaking area of research," DOE Under Secretary for Science Paul Dabbar said. "The mastery of quantum technology is creating a new Information Age that offers new ways to process information to benefit science and society."

In this case the quantum computer, built by Google and dubbed Sycamore, consisted of 53 qubits. The classical computer was ORNL's Summit, housed at the Oak Ridge Leadership Computing Facility (OLCF) and ranked as the world's most powerful thanks to its more than 4,600 compute nodes.

Both systems performed a task known as random circuit sampling (RCS), designed specifically to measure the performance of quantum devices such as Sycamore. The simulations took 200 seconds on the quantum computer; after running the same simulations on Summit the team extrapolated that the calculations would have taken the world's most powerful system more than 10,000 years to complete with current state-of-the-art algorithms, providing experimental evidence of quantum supremacy and critical information for the design of future quantum computers. Not only was Sycamore faster than its classical counterpart, but it was also approximately 10 million times more energy efficient.

The researchers also estimated the performance of individual components to accurately predict the performance of the entire Sycamore device, demonstrating that quantum information behaves consistently as it is scaled up--a necessary property for the design of large-scale quantum computers.

"This experiment establishes that today's quantum computers can outperform the best conventional computing for a synthetic benchmark," said ORNL researcher and Director of the laboratory's Quantum Computing Institute Travis Humble. "There have been other efforts to try this, but our team is the first to demonstrate this result on a real system."

That real system was critical. Researchers at Google and NASA's Ames Research Center in Silicon Valley attempting to tackle the problem using NASA resources quickly realized they needed a more powerful computer. And none are more powerful than ORNL's Summit.

Porting a quantum calculation to the classical Summit was no easy task. The RCS simulator, known as qFlex, initially included a CPU-only implementation. Summit, however, derives much of its world-class speed from NVIDIA graphics processing units (GPUs), which tackle computationally intensive math problems while the CPUs efficiently direct tasks.

A library developed by the OLCF's Dmitry Liakh for performing tensor algebra operations on multicore CPUs and GPUs allowed the team to take advantage of all of Summit which, along with the IBM system's 512 gigabytes of memory per node, increased the speed of the simulation 46-fold per node (using 4,550 of Summit's nodes) as compared to the previous implementation that ran solely on CPUs.

"That the simulation proving the validity of a next-generation architecture such as quantum was run on ORNL's Summit is indicative of the lab's long history of accelerated computing innovation and the necessity of classical supercomputers in realizing the potential of quantum computing," ORNL Associate Laboratory Director for Computing and Computational Sciences Jeff Nichols said.

ORNL's Titan was the first leadership computing system to harness the power of GPUs, allowing it to debut at number one in 2012 and remain among the top 10 world's most powerful systems until 2018. It was Titan's success that enabled the development of Summit and, by extension, is driving the design of Frontier, slated to be among the nation's first exascale computers when it is delivered in 2021.

The laboratory has been planning for post-exascale platforms for more than a decade via dedicated research programs in quantum computing, networking, sensing and quantum materials. These efforts aim to accelerate the understanding of how near-term quantum computing resources can help tackle today's most daunting scientific challenges and support the recently announced National Quantum Initiative, a federal effort to ensure American leadership in quantum sciences, particularly computing.

Such leadership will require systems like Summit to ensure the steady march from devices such as Sycamore to larger-scale quantum systems exponentially more powerful than anything in operation today.

"Realizing the potential of quantum computing requires partnerships that leverage the strengths of innovators like Google and ORNL," ORNL Director Thomas Zacharia said. "This milestone is an inspiration to the next generation of researchers who will help push the frontiers of what's possible in computing and scientific discovery."

###

The research was supported by DOE's Office of Science. The OLCF is a DOE Office of Science User Facility.

####

About Oak Ridge National Laboratory
UT-Battelle LLC manages Oak Ridge National Laboratory for DOE's Office of Science, the single largest supporter of basic research in the physical sciences in the United States. DOE's Office of Science is working to address some of the most pressing challenges of our time. For more information, visit https://energy.gov/science

For more information, please click here

Contacts:
Scott Jones

865-221-9866

Copyright © Oak Ridge National Laboratory

If you have a comment, please Contact us.

Issuers of news releases, not 7th Wave, Inc. or Nanotechnology Now, are solely responsible for the accuracy of the content.

Bookmark:
Delicious Digg Newsvine Google Yahoo Reddit Magnoliacom Furl Facebook

Related Links

RELATED JOURNAL ARTICLE:

Related News Press

News and information

INRS and ELI deepen strategic partnership to train the next generation in laser science:PhD students will benefit from international mobility and privileged access to cutting-edge infrastructure June 6th, 2025

Electrifying results shed light on graphene foam as a potential material for lab grown cartilage June 6th, 2025

Quantum computers simulate fundamental physics: shedding light on the building blocks of nature June 6th, 2025

A 1960s idea inspires NBI researchers to study hitherto inaccessible quantum states June 6th, 2025

Quantum Physics

Quantum computers simulate fundamental physics: shedding light on the building blocks of nature June 6th, 2025

A 1960s idea inspires NBI researchers to study hitherto inaccessible quantum states June 6th, 2025

Videos/Movies

New X-ray imaging technique to study the transient phases of quantum materials December 29th, 2022

Solvent study solves solar cell durability puzzle: Rice-led project could make perovskite cells ready for prime time September 23rd, 2022

Scientists prepare for the world’s smallest race: Nanocar Race II March 18th, 2022

Visualizing the invisible: New fluorescent DNA label reveals nanoscopic cancer features March 4th, 2022

Govt.-Legislation/Regulation/Funding/Policy

INRS and ELI deepen strategic partnership to train the next generation in laser science:PhD students will benefit from international mobility and privileged access to cutting-edge infrastructure June 6th, 2025

Electrifying results shed light on graphene foam as a potential material for lab grown cartilage June 6th, 2025

Institute for Nanoscience hosts annual proposal planning meeting May 16th, 2025

Rice researchers harness gravity to create low-cost device for rapid cell analysis February 28th, 2025

Possible Futures

Ben-Gurion University of the Negev researchers several steps closer to harnessing patient's own T-cells to fight off cancer June 6th, 2025

Researchers unveil a groundbreaking clay-based solution to capture carbon dioxide and combat climate change June 6th, 2025

Cambridge chemists discover simple way to build bigger molecules – one carbon at a time June 6th, 2025

A 1960s idea inspires NBI researchers to study hitherto inaccessible quantum states June 6th, 2025

Quantum Computing

Quantum computers simulate fundamental physics: shedding light on the building blocks of nature June 6th, 2025

Magnetism in new exotic material opens the way for robust quantum computers June 4th, 2025

A new study provides insights into cleaning up noise in quantum entanglement:When it comes to purifying quantum entanglement, new theoretical work highlights the importance of tailoring noise-minimizing solutions to specific quantum systems May 16th, 2025

Programmable electron-induced color router array May 14th, 2025

Discoveries

Researchers unveil a groundbreaking clay-based solution to capture carbon dioxide and combat climate change June 6th, 2025

Cambridge chemists discover simple way to build bigger molecules – one carbon at a time June 6th, 2025

Electrifying results shed light on graphene foam as a potential material for lab grown cartilage June 6th, 2025

A 1960s idea inspires NBI researchers to study hitherto inaccessible quantum states June 6th, 2025

Announcements

INRS and ELI deepen strategic partnership to train the next generation in laser science:PhD students will benefit from international mobility and privileged access to cutting-edge infrastructure June 6th, 2025

Electrifying results shed light on graphene foam as a potential material for lab grown cartilage June 6th, 2025

Quantum computers simulate fundamental physics: shedding light on the building blocks of nature June 6th, 2025

A 1960s idea inspires NBI researchers to study hitherto inaccessible quantum states June 6th, 2025

Interviews/Book Reviews/Essays/Reports/Podcasts/Journals/White papers/Posters

Cambridge chemists discover simple way to build bigger molecules – one carbon at a time June 6th, 2025

Electrifying results shed light on graphene foam as a potential material for lab grown cartilage June 6th, 2025

Quantum computers simulate fundamental physics: shedding light on the building blocks of nature June 6th, 2025

A 1960s idea inspires NBI researchers to study hitherto inaccessible quantum states June 6th, 2025

Grants/Sponsored Research/Awards/Scholarships/Gifts/Contests/Honors/Records

Researchers uncover strong light-matter interactions in quantum spin liquids: Groundbreaking experiment supported by Rice researcher reveals new insights into a mysterious phase of quantum matter December 13th, 2024

New discovery aims to improve the design of microelectronic devices September 13th, 2024

Physicists unlock the secret of elusive quantum negative entanglement entropy using simple classical hardware August 16th, 2024

Atomic force microscopy in 3D July 5th, 2024

Research partnerships

INRS and ELI deepen strategic partnership to train the next generation in laser science:PhD students will benefit from international mobility and privileged access to cutting-edge infrastructure June 6th, 2025

Superconductors: Amazingly orderly disorder: A surprising effect was discovered through a collaborative effort by researchers from TU Wien and institutions in Croatia, France, Poland, Singapore, Switzerland, and the US during the investigation of a special material: the atoms are May 14th, 2025

HKU physicists uncover hidden order in the quantum world through deconfined quantum critical points April 25th, 2025

SMART researchers pioneer first-of-its-kind nanosensor for real-time iron detection in plants February 28th, 2025

NanoNews-Digest
The latest news from around the world, FREE




  Premium Products
NanoNews-Custom
Only the news you want to read!
 Learn More
NanoStrategies
Full-service, expert consulting
 Learn More











ASP
Nanotechnology Now Featured Books




NNN

The Hunger Project