Gizmodo reached out to several experts in the field, who affirmed the new results. They added that the experiment, while commendable, isn\u2019t the most practical use of a quantum computer\u2014which already gets flak for its uselessness to everyday users.<\/p>\n
Then again, \u201cquantum advantage\u201d is a weird, surprisingly malleable concept with many possible applications. Overall, the results are definitely worth a closer look.<\/p>\n
Alice and Bob make a cameo <\/p>\n
Quantum enthusiasts may be familiar with Alice and Bob, two fictional characters often summoned<\/a> for quantum thought experiments. In the context of the new experiment, Alice and Bob are two researchers collaborating on a computation using a single device. They receive different inputs at different points in time, but only Alice can send Bob a message, and not the other way around. Based on Alice\u2019s message, Bob must decide how to measure and interpret to produce a final output.<\/p>\n According to the paper, \u201cthe use of a quantum message can provably reduce the amount of communication required by an exponential factor compared to any protocol that uses classical communication alone.\u201d In other words, a small quantum message can replace a much larger classical one. To prove their point, the team repeated the experiment 10,000 times on Quantinuum\u2019s H1-1 trapped-ion quantum computers, coupled with a careful mathematical validation of their protocol.<\/p>\n Surprisingly, they found that a quantum computer only needed 12 qubits (qubits are the smallest unit of information for quantum computers) to solve this problem. By contrast, even the most efficient classical computers needed 330 bits.<\/p>\n A different way to play the game <\/p>\n \u201cThis is a very different type of quantum advantage than we have seen before\u2014not better or worse, but it\u2019s just proving something completely different from past experiments,\u201d Bill Fefferman<\/a>, a computer scientist at the University of Chicago, told Gizmodo in an email. Fefferman previously collaborated with senior author Scott Aaronson but wasn\u2019t involved in the new study.<\/p>\n Fefferman explained that scientists typically equate quantum advantage to \u201cstriving to perform a computation on a quantum computer that can be solved dramatically faster than any classical computer.\u201d By contrast, the new experiment achieves \u201cquantum information supremacy,\u201d in which the focus isn\u2019t so much on speed as it is on using fewer qubits to solve a problem that classical computers need many more bits to crack.<\/p>\n \u201cIt is true that their result is unconditional, in the sense that it doesn\u2019t rely on unproven assumptions,\u201d Fefferman said. \u201cThis is, of course, a great feature of this new experiment, but it\u2019s also inherited by this \u2018moving of the goalposts.\u2019\u201d<\/p>\n Gizmodo contacted the study\u2019s authors, who said they couldn\u2019t comment until the paper is formally published.<\/p>\n Pressing the advantage <\/p>\n The results raise questions about the broader goals of proving quantum advantage. As IBM Quantum\u2019s director told Gizmodo in a previous interview<\/a>, a potential answer is to ask how quantum computers can enhance computing problems we\u2019re already familiar with.<\/p>\n But as Fefferman noted, there isn\u2019t necessarily a better or worse approach for arriving at quantum advantage\u2014although this \u201cgoalpost\u201d appears to be the holy grail for the field\u2019s struggle to prove its worth.<\/p>\n![\"Quantum](\"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/10\/quantum-advantage-experiment-aaronson-et-al-simplified-e1758914220302.jpg\")
A simplified diagram representing the experimental setup. \u00a9 Kretschmer et al., 2025 <\/p>\n![\"Ibm](\"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/10\/IBM-Quantum-System-RIKEN-1280x840.jpg\")
IBM\u2019s Quantum System Two installed at the RIKEN Center for Computational Science in Kobe, Japan. \u00a9 IBM <\/p>\n