Quantum Supremacy

Researchers are no longer focused solely on building a quantum computer that could carry out Shor’s algorithm and break encryption codes. For many, an intermediate goal is to achieve “quantum supremacy,” a term coined by Caltech’s John Preskill to describe the demonstration of a quantum computer that can carry out tasks that are not possible or practical with a traditional computer.

A quantum simulator made of trapped beryllium ions (charged atoms) that are proven to be entangled, a quantum phenomenon linking the properties of all the particles.

NIST physicists have built a quantum simulator made of entangled beryllium ions (charged atoms) . The spinning crystal, about 1 millimeter wide, can contain anywhere from 20 to several hundred ions, and can potentially simulate classical phenonmena in ways that classical computers cannot.

Credit: NIST