Search | New Scientist

The baffling quantum maths solution it took 10 years to understand

6 February 2019

A decade ago, two mathematicians produced a solution to one of the most difficult maths problems ever. The only problem was, no one understood it - until now

Could the world's mightiest computers be too complicated to use?

10 October 2018

China, Japan and the US are racing to build the first exascale computer – but devising programmes clever enough to run on them is a different story

Google just made it much harder to build a serious quantum computer

14 August 2018

To reach quantum supremacy, a quantum computer has to do a task no ordinary computer can. Google has made that harder with an algorithm that beefs up regular PCs

Quantum computers are weirder and more powerful than we thought

4 June 2018

A theoretical breakthrough has shown that quantum computers are not just faster versions of ordinary computers, but something much stranger

A Bristlecone chip being installed by Research Scientist Marissa Giustina at the Quantum AI Lab in Santa Barbara

Google's 72-qubit chip is the largest yet

6 March 2018

Google has announced Bristlecone, a 72-qubit quantum computer that may be the first to kickstart a new computing era by achieving quantum supremacy

University of Maryland's fully connected trapped-ion system

Best-yet quantum simulator with 53 qubits could really be useful

29 November 2017

A 53-qubit quantum simulator is the biggest of its kind, and has already done some calculations that outperform most, if not all, classical computers

AI physicists: The machines cracking the quantum code

25 October 2017

We are all too easily bamboozled by the quantum world's complexity – now artificial intelligence is venturing where human minds fear to go

Google's quantum computing plans threatened by IBM curveball

20 October 2017

A mathematical leap has let IBM simulate a 56-qubit quantum computer on a traditional machine, the biggest yet on a classical computer

Person with cosmos where their head should be

We can’t ever know whether or not our universe is a simulation

6 October 2017

Despite recent headlines saying we don’t live in a simulation, the answer to a question that’s more science fiction than science remains far out of reach

A superconducting circuit with nine qubits

Google quantum computer test shows breakthrough is within reach

28 September 2017

The idea that quantum computers can do things that regular ones cannot isn’t proven. But Google thinks it knows a problem only a quantum computer can solve