A basic feature of number theory, prime numbers are also a fundamental building block of computer science, from hashtables to cryptography.

That’s because the secret prime numbers that underpin the security of an RSA key are easy to calculate using Shor’s algorithm. Computing the same primes using classical computing takes ...

Quantum computers still can’t do much. Almost every time researchers have found something the high-tech machines should one day excel at, a classical algorithm comes along that can do it just as well ...

Traditional algorithms power complicated computational tools like machine learning. A new approach, called algorithms with predictions, uses the power of machine learning to improve algorithms.

The AI-generated algorithms are already being used by millions of developers. DeepMind’s run of discoveries in fundamental computer science continues. Last year the company used a version of its ...

In 1994, mathematician Peter Shor introduced a quantum-computing algorithm that could reduce the time it takes to find the prime factors of large numbers from billions of years using a ...

DNA computers have to date only been able to run one algorithm, but a new design shows how these machines can be made more flexible—and useful.

These applications are based on quantum algorithms—algorithms that run on a quantum computer and achieve a speedup, or other efficiency improvement, over any possible classical algorithm.

Adiabatic computing has been used to factorise a larger number than any previous quantum computer, but is the method truly quantum?