Wait isn't that the common assumption? That the universe is just an algorithm and we're trying to figure which is it?
It might be a distinction without a difference, but I always understood the idea to be that objects we believe to be real are actually mathematical structures.
I see it as sharing some ideas from the we-are-living-in-a-simulation idea. If we were in a simulation, you wouldn’t say data structures and objects are real but would say the table in front of you is actually just data.
That's different from the world being mathematical or informational, which raises the question of what makes it real to us. What breathes life into the equations? Consciousness? Where does consciousness come into the picture?