Google Quantum AI recorded a major milestone on Monday with its Willow quantum computer chip, which is capable of performing a computing challenge in under five minutes that the world’s fastest supercomputer would need over 10 septillion years to complete, reports tech outlet the Verge.
That time period – 10 septillion years, or 1025 – far exceeds the age of the universe, underscoring the mind boggling progress technology has made since 2019. That year, the 54-qubit Sycamore chip completed in three minutes a mathematical equation that would take a supercomputer 10,000 years.
Another breakthrough with the new Willow chip is a reduction in the errors that bedevil quantum computing. As the Verge explains: “Instead of bits, which represent either 1 or 0, quantum computing uses qubits, a unit that can exist in multiple states at the same time, such as 1, 0 and anything in between.” But such flexibility also comes with downsides, namely a high error rate, which Google terms “one of the greatest challenges” in the field.
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Willow may have the answer, according to Google Quantum AI, which published its findings in the journal Nature. The secret is to add ever larger arrays of physical qubits – a device that behaves like a two-state quantum system – leading to dramatically reduced errors, and Willow’s ability to correct them in real time. “We achieved an exponential reduction in the error rate,” Google Quantum AI founder Hartmut Neven says on the Google blog.
While Microsoft, Amazon and IBM are also working on their own quantum computing systems, at 105 qubits, Willow “now has best-in-class performance.”
The next step is to turn that capability toward real world problems, with Willow performing a first “useful, beyond-classical” computation – meaning one with relevant real-world application that cannot be done by a traditional computer. Quantum computation, Neven says, will be “indispensable” in “helping us discover new medicines, designing more efficient batteries for electric cars, and accelerating progress in fusion and new energy alternatives.”
