Hard computing problem might be solvable only by quantum computers

(Phys.org)--Researchers have introduced a new computing problem and shown that it would be extremely difficult, if not impossible, for a classical computer to solve, but in theory it could be efficiently solved using quantum techniques. The problem, which is called Gaussian boson sampling, is a new version of boson sampling, which is a similar computing problem that was introduced a few years ago with the goal of demonstrating the potential advantages of quantum computers over classical ones.