Google will pay R$24 million to anyone who finds a job for a quantum computer

The power of a quantum computer allows it to perform tasks that would take a regular machine thousands of years to accomplish, but until now there's really no practical use for such power. Hey Google She wants to change that, and has launched a competition offering $5 million to anyone who finds practical uses for this type of machine.

The competition is in partnership with XPRIZE

Quantum computers can perform calculations at the levels of atoms, molecules, photons, electrons and protons, but for Google, the usefulness of this type of computer is not entirely clear. The company has joined the non-profit XPRIZE Foundation, which organizes and encourages competitions in order to develop technologyoffering just over R$24 million, in direct transfer, as a prize to any researcher who finds a practical use for a quantum computer that benefits humanity in some way.

The competition will last for three years and requires researchers to show how the algorithm can be applied to the finer details and specifications of quantum computing. In addition, competitors can show how an existing quantum algorithm can be applied to a real-world problem that has not been considered before.

A quantum computer is real, but it lacks practice

According to Google's quantum algorithms leader, Ryan Babush, research involving this type of equipment is currently more abstract than real.

“There are many abstract mathematical problems where we can prove that quantum computers provide very large speedups,” Babush points out. “But much of the research community has focused less on trying to match these more abstract quantum accelerations to specific real-world applications and more on trying to figure out how to use quantum computers.”

Will any big quantum computing news be discovered by 2027 thanks to Google's competition?

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