Many approaches are being tried in the race to develop a working quantum computer, but Google this week reported using a combination of techniques with particularly promising results.

In a paper published Wednesday in the journal Nature, a team of researchers from Google and several academic institutions describe a method that they call “quantum annealing with a digital twist.” Essentially, they combined the quantum annealing approach with the “gate” model of quantum computing and found that they could get the best of both worlds.

Quantum capabilities are widely anticipated for the giant gains they’re expected to deliver in performance and efficiency. Much of that derives from what’s known as superposition. While the bits used by traditional computers represent data as 0s or 1s, superposition allows qubits — the quantum equivalent of a bits — to be both 0 and 1 at once.

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