The story so far: In two papers published in Nature on October 22, researchers from Google, MIT, Stanford, and Caltech reported what they called a verifiable display of quantum advantage using the company’s Willow quantum processor . That is, the teams said they have shown that Willow clearly outperforms existing supercomputers on solving a specific problem.

How does a quantum computer work?

Imagine waves moving in a pond. When two wave crests meet, they combine to make a bigger wave. When a crest meets a trough, they cancel each other out. This is called interference. At the quantum level, particles can behave like waves and their “wave functions”, which describe their probabilities, can be made to interfere with one another. By controlling this interference, scientists can amplify

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