A quantum computer can win a game of tic-tac-toe by simply existing in every possible future at the same time.
April 29, 2026
Original Paper
Playing Dice with the Universe: Programming Quantum Computers to Play Traditional Games
arXiv · 2604.23819
The Takeaway
D-Wave quantum annealers were programmed to play traditional games by representing the rules as a quantum state rather than using a standard search tree. Instead of calculating moves one by one like a normal AI, the quantum processor samples the energy landscape of the game to find the winning path. This allows the machine to implicitly evaluate all possible outcomes simultaneously to find the best strategy. The human player is essentially fighting against a machine that has already seen every way the game can end. This approach could be used to solve much more complex real-world problems like logistics and supply chain optimization by treating them as massive, multi-dimensional games.
From the abstract
The challenge of programming classical computers to play traditional, competitive games against human players has helped to advance classical hardware and software. Quantum computers have the potential to play games in a unique way: programmed only with the rules of a game, they should be able to implicitly represent all future paths of a game leading to wins, losses, or draws, and sample from this path set to identify moves that maximize the likelihood of a win. This permits skilled play withou