The Argument Against Quantum Computers, the Quantum Laws of Nature, and Google’s Supremacy Claims

My 2018 lecture at the ICA workshop in Singapore dealt with quantum computation as a meeting point of the laws of computation and the laws of quantum mechanics. We described a computational complexity argument against the feasibility of quantum computers: we identified a very low-level complexity class of probability distributions described by noisy intermediate-scale quantum computers, and explained why it would allow neither good-quality quantum error-correction nor a demonstration of “quantum supremacy,” (a.k.a. “quantum advantage”), namely, the ability of quantum computers to make computations that are impossible or extremely hard for classical computers. We went on to describe general predictions arising from the argument and proposed general laws that manifest the failure of quantum computers. In October 2019, Nature published a paper describing an experimental work that took place at Google. The paper claims to demonstrate quantum (computational) supremacy on a 53-qubit quantum computer, thus clearly challenging my theory. In this paper, I will explain and discuss my work in the perspective of Google’s claims.