Quantum Computational Supremacy and Its Applications

<!--HTML--><p><span><span>Last fall, a team at Google announced the first-ever demonstration of "quantum computational&nbsp;supremacy"---that is, a clear quantum speedup over a classical computer for some task---using a 53-qubit programmable superconducting chip called Sycamore.&nbsp; Google's accomplishment drew on a decade of research in my field of quantum complexity theory.&nbsp; This talk will discuss questions like: what exactly was the (contrived) problem that Sycamore solved?&nbsp; How does one verify the outputs using a classical computer?&nbsp;&nbsp;And&nbsp;how confident are we that the problem is classically hard---especially in light of subsequent counterclaims by IBM&nbsp;and&nbsp;others?&nbsp; I'll end with a possible&nbsp;application&nbsp;that I've been developing for Google's experiment: namely, the generation of trusted public random bits, for use (for example) in cryptocurrencies.</span></span></p> <p><em>Password: 261165</em></p>