谷歌量子電腦實現重大技術飛躍（1/2）

Recently the New York Times reported the following:

Google’s Quantum Computer Makes a Big Technical Leap (1/2)

Designed to accelerate advances in medicine and other fields, the tech giant’s quantum algorithm runs 13,000 times as fast as software written for a traditional supercomputer.

By Cade Metz - Reporting from Goleta, Calif.

Oct. 22, 2025

Michel H. Devoret was one of three physicists who won this year’s Nobel Prize in Physics for a series of experiments they conducted more than four decades ago.

As a postdoctoral researcher at the University of California, Berkeley, in the mid-1980s, Dr. Devoret helped show that the strange and powerful properties of quantum mechanics — the physics of the subatomic realm — could also be observed in electrical circuits large enough to be seen with the naked eye.

That discovery, which paved the way for cellphones and fiber-optic cables, may have greater implications in the coming years as researchers build quantum computers that could be vastly more powerful than today’s computing systems. That could lead to the discovery of new medicines and vaccines, as well as cracking the encryption techniques that guard the world’s secrets.

On Wednesday, Dr. Devoret and his colleagues at a Google lab near Santa Barbara, Calif., said their quantum computer had successfully run a new algorithm capable of accelerating advances in drug discovery, the design of new building materials and other fields.

Leveraging the counterintuitive powers of quantum mechanics, Google’s machine ran this algorithm 13,000 times as fast as a top supercomputer executing similar code in the realm of classical physics, according to a paper written by the Google researchers in the scientific journal Nature.

“In the future when we have bigger quantum computers, we will be able to run calculations that would be impossible with classical algorithms,” said Dr. Devoret, who joined Google in 2023.

Quantum computing is still an experimental technology. But Google’s new algorithm, Quantum Echoes, shows that scientists are rapidly improving techniques that could allow quantum computers to crack scientific problems no traditional computing device ever could.

“It’s a meaningful technological advance,” said Prineha Narang, a professor of physical sciences and electrical and computer engineering at the University of California, Los Angeles. “We have heard a lot about hardware advances in the field, and for a while, I worried that the algorithms would not keep up. But they have shown that this is not the case.”

Google’s quantum research is competing with other tech giants like Microsoft and IBM, myriad start-ups, universities and rapidly advancing efforts in China. The Chinese government has committed more than $15.2 billion to quantum research.

Inside a classical computer like a laptop or a smartphone, silicon chips store numbers as “bits” of information. Each bit holds either a 1 or a 0. The chips then perform calculations by manipulating these bits — adding them, multiplying them and so on.

A quantum computer, by contrast, performs calculations in ways that defy common sense.

According to the laws of quantum mechanics — the physics of very small things — a single object can behave like two separate objects at the same time. By exploiting this strange phenomenon, scientists can build quantum bits, or “qubits,” that hold a combination of 1 and 0 at the same time.

This means that as the number of qubits grows, a quantum computer becomes exponentially more powerful.

(to be continued)

Translation

谷歌量子電腦實現重大技術飛躍（1/2）

這家科技巨頭的量子演算法旨在加速醫學和其他領域的進步，其運行速度是傳統超級電腦軟體的13,000倍。

Michel H. Devoret是三位榮獲今年諾貝爾物理學獎的物理學家之一，他們憑藉四十多年前進行的一系列實驗獲得了這一獎項。

1980年代中期，Devoret博士在加州大學柏克萊分校擔任博士後研究員，他幫助證明了量子力學（亞原子領域的物理學）奇特而強大的特性，也可以在肉眼可見的電路中觀察到。

這項發現為手機和光纖電纜的出現鋪平了道路，隨著研究人員建造出遠超當今計算系統的量子計算機，這項發現在未來幾年可能會產生更大的影響。這不僅有助於發現新的藥物和疫苗，還能破解守護這世界的秘密的加密技術。

週三，Devoret博士和他的同事在加州聖塔芭芭拉附近的谷歌實驗室宣佈，他們的量子電腦成功運行了一種新的演算法，該演算法能夠加速藥物研發、新型建築材料設計以及其他領域的進展。

根據Google研究人員發表在科學期刊《自然》上的一篇論文，利用量子力學的反直覺力量，Google的機器運行演算法的速度是頂級超級電腦在經典物理學領域執行類似程式碼的13,000倍。

2023年加入Google的Devoret博士說道: 「未來，當我們擁有更強大的量子電腦時，我們將能夠運行傳統演算法無法完成的計算」。

量子計算仍是一項實驗性技術。但Google的新演算法「量子迴聲」表明，科學家們正在快速改進技術，這些技術可以讓量子電腦破解傳統計算設備無法解決的科學難題。

加州大學洛杉磯分校物理科學、電子與電腦工程教授Prineha Narang說:「這是一項意義重大的技術進步」; 「我們聽到了很多關於該領域硬件進步的消息，有一段時間，我擔心演算法跟不上。但事實證明並非如此」。

谷歌的量子研究正與微軟和IBM等其他科技巨頭、許多初創公司、大學以及中國快速發展的科研機構競爭。中國政府已投入超過152億美元用於量子研究。

在筆記型電腦或智能手機等傳統電腦中，矽晶片將數位儲存為資訊「位元」。每個位元不是 1，就是 0。然後，晶片透過操縱這些位元來執行計算 - 例如加法、乘法等等。

相較之下，量子計算機的計算方式卻違背常理。

根據量子力學定律 - 研究微小物體的物理學單一物體可以同時表現得像兩個獨立的物體。利用這種奇特的現象，科學家可以建構量子位元，或稱為“量子位元”，它同時儲存 1 和 0 的組合。

這意味著隨著量子位元數量的增加，量子電腦的效能將呈指數級增長。

（待續）

Note:

1. Quantum mechanics possesses counterintuitive properties that are poised to revolutionize various industries. These properties, like superposition and entanglement, enable quantum technologies to reshape computing, communication, sensing, and simulation. The wave-particle duality and measurement's influence on observed behavior are also examples of these counterintuitive features. Quantum computing, leveraging these principles, promises significant advancements in machine learning and other fields by dramatically increasing processing power. (Sider Fusion)