Xanadu's Borealis demonstrates quantum advantage with Gaussian boson sampling

Xanadu/Aurora

Xanadu reported quantum computational advantage with Borealis, a photonic processor with dynamically programmable gates, on a Gaussian boson sampling task. The processor sampled at 36 microseconds per sample—a task estimated to take 9,000 years on the world's fastest supercomputer. This was the first photonic quantum advantage using fully programmable gates.

• Gaussian boson sampling: 36 microseconds per sample vs. ~9,000 years classically—exponential speedup.
• 216 squeezed states, 216 modes, up to 219 measured photons with mean of 125.
• First fully programmable photonic processor to achieve quantum advantage; earlier claims used fixed circuits.
• Accessible via Xanadu's cloud platform; avoids classical spoofing vulnerabilities of fixed-circuit advantage claims.