Scientists Solved an 'Impossible' Quantum Puzzle With a Personal Computer

Flatiron Institute researchers used tensor networks and belief propagation to simulate quantum spin glass systems on a classical computer.

Their optimized methods matched or outperformed results previously obtained on a D-Wave Advantage2 quantum machine.

The work shows that some problems thought to require quantum hardware can still be handled well by advanced conventional computing.

That narrows the gap between classical and quantum computing and helps pinpoint where quantum computers may hold a real advantage.