The US Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency has published the results of an exercise that assessed whether quantum computers will deliver on the promise of solving problems that stymie classical machines – with mixed results.
Bad News for Quantum Computing: Another Advantage Gone
In 2021, DARPA created a Quantum Benchmarking program "with the goal of reinventing the metrics critical to measuring quantum computing progress and applying scientific rigor to often unsubstantiated claims about quantum computing's future promise."
That effort prompted DARPA to create eight interdisciplinary teams, which compiled "more than 200 potential applications from which they created 20 candidate benchmarks that could quantify progress in using quantum computers to solve difficult computational tasks with economic benefit."
In a second phase of work, benchmarks were selected for detailed study in three broad categories: chemistry, materials science, and nonlinear differential equations. Five teams refined these benchmarks using what DARPA described last week as "rigorous, tool-driven criteria, and then expanded these benchmarks' applications, incorporating scalable and robust testing, evaluating real-world benefits, and creating tools to estimate the resources and performance required to run end-to-end instantiations of the applications on realistic quantum hardware."
