I wonder, are quantum computers really that much faster than classical ones? For example, how much of an advantage do they provide in finding the primality of a number using Shor's algorithm? Or is this just theoretical? Do you think there's any hype around quantum supremacy?
How fast are quantum computers compared to classical computers?
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Last week, I did a simple quantum computing experiment with my students. First, we had a classic computer test the primality of a 1000-digit number. It took an average of 5 seconds. When we tried the same process with our simplest quantum simulator (IBM Quantum Composer), the result came instantly. Of course, it's not a real quantum computer—just a 5-qubit simulation—but it was still impressive in terms of demonstrating the principle.
Although we didn't fully implement Shor's algorithm, we looked at factoring a simple number with my students. Data that's hard to store in memory with classical methods could represent multiple states simultaneously in quantum superposition. This is actually the core idea behind the algorithm's popularity: its ability to perform parallel computations. Of course, there are still many hurdles to overcome when dealing with large numbers in the real world, but the spark of curiosity in my students' eyes tells me the future of this technology is bright.