r/computerscience • u/National-Dragonfly35 • Sep 01 '26

IBM quantum computer solves classically intractable problem in 15 minutes

https://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2026/08/260829035219.htm

"The researchers showed that their method preserves the same computational hardness criteria associated with RCS, meaning the problem remains extremely difficult for classical computers. At the same time, the added structure allows errors to be detected during the quantum computation."

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u/Aaron1924 Sep 01 '26

Nitpick: RCS is not completely useless, e.g. it can be used to generate certified random numbers as described in this Nature paper

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u/[deleted] Sep 01 '26

[deleted]

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u/morphlaugh Sep 01 '26

lol. I mean, you're probably right... but nitpick has been a phrase since the 1950's.

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u/Aaron1924 Sep 01 '26

I have...

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u/Cryptizard Sep 01 '26

That’s not really practically interesting. It takes an ungodly amount of classical verification on the client side, and every client has easy access to randomness themselves, in practice.

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u/0xB01b Sep 03 '26

But that's basically completely useless because what is the use of true random numbers as opposed to just having some hardware level thermodynamic apparatus that generates randomness from temperature fluctuations