Statistics Seminar

Abstract: Quantum supremacy refers to the ability of a quantum computer to perform any task, possibly contrived and useless, which a classical  computer cannot perform in reasonable time. Various important implications follow if indeed quantum supremacy is proved,  and I will discuss some of them. Recently a group in Google and two groups in China claimed to have proved quantum supremacy. Such proofs involve various statistical aspects due to the noisy nature of quantum computers, and the nature of the tasks they perform, and I will discuss these aspects. Most of the lecture will be non-technical, but given time, I will try to go into details of some of the statistical issues that arise. Spoiler: I will not pass judgement about whether quantum supremacy has indeed been demonstrated.