In late October2019, Google CEO Sundar Pichai likened the most recent result from the business’s quantum computing hardware lab in Santa Barbara, California, to the Wright siblings’ very first flight.
Among the laboratory’s prototype processors had achieved quantum supremacy— evocative jargon for the minute a traditional computer does something apparently difficult by harnessing quantum mechanics. In a post, Pichai said the milestone affirmed his belief that quantum computers might one day tackle issues like climate modification, and the CEO likewise name-checked John Martinis, who had established Google’s quantum hardware group in 2014.
Here’s what Pichai didn’t mention: Right after the group had very first got its quantum supremacy experiment working a few months earlier, Martinis states, he had actually been reassigned from a management position to an advisory one. Martinis informs WIRED that the modification resulted in arguments with Hartmut Neven, the long time leader of Google’s quantum task.
Martinis resigned from Google early this month. “Given that my expert objective is for somebody to develop a quantum computer, I think my resignation is the very best strategy for everyone,” he includes.
A Google spokesperson did not contest this account, and says that the business is grateful for Martinis’ contributions and that Neven continues to head the company’s quantum project. Parent business Alphabet has a second, smaller, quantum computing group at its X Labs research system. Martinis maintains his position as a professor at the UC Santa Barbara, which he held throughout his period a
