Google's and IBM's previous "quantum supremacy" demonstrations were quickly crushed by improved classical simulations. Let's see if it survives this time.
I'm not saying they suck, but to proclaim that "quantum computers are superior" you need an actual use-case, IMO.
I would have picked it up in bits and pieces from blogs over years, here's an attempt to render that useful that is surely nitpickable:
TL;DR: there's two types of caring about Google's claims of quantum supremacy:
1. HN tends to assume these articles are about breakthrough in _product usefulness_ and then tsk tsk about lack of impact. c.f. top comment currently gravely noting after reading the paper, its too noisy and a long way off.
2. The papers are about demonstrating _there is quantum computing at all_, the interest in the people in the know is about settling that question, the raw strongman feat isn't particularly interesting.
«To summarize, I think that arguing with skeptics is not only amusing but extremely useful. It could be that quantum computing is impossible for some fundamental reason. So far, though, I haven't seen an argument that's engaged me in a really nontrivial way.»
«Very little of what we do in theoretical computer science is directly connected to a practical application. That's just not what we're trying to do. Of course, what we do has applications, but indirectly. We're trying to understand computation. If you take that as our goal, then it seems clear that starting from the best physical theories we have is a valuable activity. If you want to ask a different question, such as what we can do in the next five to ten years, then, that's fine. Just make it clear that's what you're doing.»
To wit, the article names Leonid Levin and Oded Goldreich as the primary skeptics.
Leonid has 10K citations, 2012 Knuth Prize, 37 h-index.
Oded has 63K citations, 2017 Knuth Prize, 95 h-index.
What Scott Aaronson considers "really nontrivial" is far beyond our comprehension, and he's making a claim about synthesizing an counterargument, not settling the entire argument.
Kind of like fusors: sure, you can do nuclear fusion in your garage but you're putting in far more energy than you are generating.
They're claiming they have a device which can do something that you couldn't do with a classical computer. A very narrow claim.
It is a big deal to academics, and a number of people here are close to that world and interested.
Even then, I believe the classical simulations to beat google's 53 qubit device were never actually performed -- it was shown that they could be performed quickly with petascale memory but actually doing it would be a huge expense. Add a dozen more qubits and even the hypothetical classical challengers fall off quickly...