New quantum computer smashes 'quantum supremacy' record by a factor of 100 — and it consumes 30,000 times less power

A new quantum computer has broken a world record in "quantum supremacy," topping the performance of benchmarking set by Google's Sycamore machine by 100-fold. 

Using the new 56-qubit H2-1 computer, scientists at quantum computing company Quantinuum ran various experiments to benchmark the machine's performance levels and the quality of the qubits used. They published their results June 4 in a study uploaded to the preprint database arXiv. The study has not been peer-reviewed yet.

To demonstrate the potential of the quantum computer, the scientists at Quantinuum used a well-known algorithm to measure how noisy, or error-prone, qubits were. 

Quantum computers can perform calculations in parallel thanks to the laws of quantum mechanics and entanglement between qubits, meaning the fates of different qubits can instantly change each other. Classical computers, by contrast, can work only in sequence. 

Adding more qubits to a system also scales up the power of a machine exponentially; scientists predict that quantum computers will one day perform complex calculations in seconds that a classical supercomputer would have taken thousands of years to solve. 

The point where quantum computers overtake classical ones is known as "quantum supremacy," but achieving this milestone in a practical way would need a quantum computer with millions of qubits. The largest machine today has only about 1,000 qubits. 

Related: Quantum computing breakthrough could happen with just hundreds, not millions, of qubits using new error-correction system