Quantum critical dynamics in a 5000-qubit programmable spin glass

Over two decades ago, experiments on disordered alloys suggested that spin glasses can be brought into low-energy states faster by annealing quantum fluctuations than by conventional thermal annealing. Due to the importance of spin glasses as a paradigmatic computational testbed, reproducing this phenomenon in a programmable system has remained a central challenge in quantum optimization. Here we achieve this goal by realizing quantum critical spin-glass dynamics with a superconducting quantum annealer. We measure dynamics in 3D spin glasses on thousands of qubits, where simulation of many-body quantum dynamics is intractable. We extract critical exponents and show agreement with generalized Kibble-Zurek dynamics in the critical region. Finally, we experimentally and theoretically demonstrate scaling advantage of quantum annealing versus analogous Monte Carlo algorithms in reducing energy as a function of annealing time.