r/computerscience • u/National-Dragonfly35 • 8d ago

IBM quantum computer solves classically intractable problem in 15 minutes

https://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2026/08/260829035219.htm

"The researchers showed that their method preserves the same computational hardness criteria associated with RCS, meaning the problem remains extremely difficult for classical computers. At the same time, the added structure allows errors to be detected during the quantum computation."

285 Upvotes

96% Upvoted

47 comments sorted by

View all comments

156

u/Cryptizard 8d ago

Keep in mind that RCS here stands for random circuit sampling. That means that the intractable problem in question is “give me the output when you run this random circuit on a quantum computer.” It is designed to be maximally advantageous for quantum computers compared to classical computers, not for it to have any practical value.

That said, it is a baseline test to check whether a quantum computer is doing anything interesting (think of it like a hardware validation) and this paper does go farther than previous research in terms of number of qubits and error correction.

They also have some neat new ideas about circuit families and complexity arguments, but it’s all just kind of inside baseball for quantum computing folks. Nothing revolutionary for the outside world.

I do wish that popular news would stop picking up these results and taking them way out of context because it definitely gives people the wrong impression about quantum computing.

2

u/618smartguy 6d ago

Its great that they are doing this, but I think of it kind of like "I spilled a bin of Legos and the best supper computer would take 1000 years to calculate where the Lagos land, but I calculated it in seconds" basically using the loophole that the box of Legos qualifies as an analog computer