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by willtemperley 200 days ago
The largest number factored by Shor's algorithm is 21.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Integer_factorization_records

3 comments

Even 21 was only possible by cheating (optimizing away the difficult part using prior knowledge of the results) [1]. Craig Gidney has a blog post that shows the actual quantum circuit for factoring 21 which is far beyond the capabilities of current quantum computers [2].

[1] https://www.nature.com/articles/nature12290

[2] https://algassert.com/post/2500

And it was done in 2012. I admit I’m surprised there hasn’t been more progress since.
Overview of QC factoring records, applied sleight-of-hand tricks, and their replication using a VIC-20 8-bit home computer from 1981, an abacus, and a dog:

https://eprint.iacr.org/2025/1237.pdf