I wonder how they know if the answer is correct?

It will take another 50 years to come up with a use for all that computing power in a real-life scenario. Just another example of "doing ... because I can". If the computer is so quick, feed the COVID data into it and let it come up with a viable vaccination ............ 6 MONTHS AGO !

If it takes a supercomputer 2.5 billion years to solve that, how do we know it found the right answer? Second question - was the answer 42?

Maybe they can use it to find a cure for COVID-19, and throw in the flu while they are at it. Should only take a millisecond more.

I'll wait for the peer-reviews before I say much more. China claims much, produces little proof.

They Asked another Q-Computer if the first one was lying. Its answer was, Yeah, I guess!

Mr Lotter's question raises a very good point. 'Who' and 'how' is the 'fact checking' of this computer being accomplished? And if not possible, what have you got? Sounds like a 'Catch Twenty-two' at best.

It would have been interesting if the 'Author' had also gone into what some of the 'practical' applications this type of computer is currently to be used for, if any.

I suppose it 'nice' for the Chinese to be able to brag that they have the fastest and best, but so what. If these types of computers have "stability" issues, wouldn't it be more appropriate for them to work out their problems first, before they start patting themselves on their backs.

Just saying.

Combination problems with billions of outcomes can sometimes be formulated using convolution techniques to get around the computational problem. For example the set of all random outages of 400 generators in a grid is about 10^120 combination. Yes this problem is easily solved with an exact answer in milliseconds using cumulative distributions in which each new generator is convolved into the function. Adding all the generators gives the answer that could not be solved by direct enumeration.

Now turn it loose on "The Nine Billion Names of God". If the stars go out, without any fuss, we'll know it succeeded.

@larry lotter
They simply set up the experiment and measure the results. If the calculated results match it's all good. My guess is they did the expirement first. Got the results, and then ran the simulation to see if the output would match and it did.