Nature paper details first experimental generation of certified randomness via quantum computer

In a big step towards practical quantum computing applications, a collaboration involving JPMorgan Chase and Quantinuum has successfully used a quantum computer to generate verifiably random numbers. The team produced more than 70,000 certified random bits by tasking Quantinuum’s 56-qubit H2-1 trapped-ion processor with computations designed to be fundamentally challenging for classical machines. They detailed the landmark results, achieved via remote access to the quantum hardware, in the journal Nature.

The researchers’ protocol capitalizes on the difficulty classical computers face with random circuit sampling. The experiment produced 71,313 bits of certified entropy, whose randomness the researchers rigorously verified. The check required multiple supercomputers working in tandem at 1.1 exaFLOPS. This achievement marks what the paper calls “a step towards the practical applicability of present-day quantum computers.”

This development adds to recent momentum in quantum computing. Notable examples include Google’s demonstration that quantum error correction improves as systems scale, D-Wave using quantum annealing to perform complex magnetic material simulations orders of magnitude faster than certain classical algorithms, and AWS designing new chip architectures like Ocelot aimed at drastically reducing the qubit overhead needed for error correction. Such advancements, culminating in the certified randomness achievement, help pave the way for enhanced cryptography and secure communications, even as the authors of the Nature study acknowledge limitations for immediate production deployment.

JPMorgan Chase elaborated on the significance of the research in a technology blog post, emphasizing that while randomness is important for applications from cryptography to ensuring fairness, classical methods often require trusting hardware sources without rigorous verification. “Our work is the first to leverage this task of sampling to implement a potential useful cryptographic primitive,” it noted.

This quantum protocol offers a strategy by generating “certified randomness,” which comes with mathematical guarantees. The JPMC team notes the protocol ensures randomness “even if the quantum computer was acting maliciously, compromised by a third party or impersonated.” While verifying the 71,313 bits generated demanded extensive supercomputing resources, including the Frontier system, the firm frames the achievement as tapping quantum sampling benchmarks “to implement a potential useful cryptographic primitive.”