The fact that Google, in partnership with NASA, has achieved quantum supremacy will one day be a milestone studied in history books. It also bodes well for the United States because it means that despite rivals China, Russia and to a lesser extent North Korea having spent billions on their own quantum computing programs, we still achieved this remarkable feat first. That puts us well ahead in the quantum cold war that seems to be brewing.
Quantum computing has come a long way in a very short time. Back in 2016 when I talked with quantum scientists and put together an explainer piece for Nextgov about the differences between quantum and traditional computers, there were still quite a few experts who doubted that quantum computing would ever achieve anything useful. There were even noted scientists who believed the whole thing was a hoax.
Developing a new kind of computer system that uses quantum physics to calculate problems is necessary not only because of the speed it can offer, but also because we are nearing the limit of what we can do with traditional hardware. Right now, the typical size of a transistor inside most computers is 14 nanometers, which is incredibly small, about 500 times smaller than a single blood cell. Transistors are necessary because they enable computers to turn bits into a one or a zero. Electrons that are allowed to pass through the switch are given a value of one. Those that are blocked become zeros. But if your transistor is much smaller than 14 nanometers, ..
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