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It is indeed incredibly exciting when better classical algorithms are found. But if Google were using 10 more qubits, then that classical algorithm would have f

It is indeed incredibly exciting when better classical algorithms are found. But if Google were using 10 more qubits, then that classical algorithm would have failed. That is at the root of supremacy experiments: a minor increase in the number of qubits leads to exponential difficulty in classically faking the result. And that type of push-and-pull will continue for another few years until we have a "useful" example of supremacy. That does not de-value the current technology demonstrators that are paving the way.

andrewla 4y ago
> But if Google were using 10 more qubits, then that classical algorithm would have failed That's a big maybe -- the paper that describes the classical algorithm indicates that they achieved significantly higher fidelity than that reported by the Sycamore paper, so it's unclear if the quantum computer was even giving valid results at more than 12-14 qubits.