Google, Alibaba Spar Over Timeline for 'Quantum Supremacy'

Google's quantum computing researchers have been planning a party--but new results from a competing team at China's Alibaba may have postponed it. The China-America corporate rivalry on an obscure frontier of physics illustrates a growing contest between nations and companies hoping to create a new form of improbably powerful computer. In March, Google unveiled a chip called Bristlecone intended to set a computing milestone. It could, Google said, become the first quantum computing system to perform a calculation beyond the power of any conventional computer--a marker known as quantum supremacy. The group's leader, John Martinis, suggested it could reach supremacy this year, updating an earlier prediction that his team might do so in 2017.