Google reveals quantum computing chip with ‘groundbreaking’ achievements

Google’s quantum computing lab has just reached an vital milestone. On Monday, the company revealed that its modern Willow quantum computing chip can complete a computational task in less than five minutes – a process that Google estimates would take one of the world’s fastest supercomputers 10 septillion years, or longer than the age of the universe.

In addition to greater efficiency, researchers also found a way to reduce errors, which Google calls “one of the biggest challenges in quantum computing.” Instead of bits, which represent 1 or 0, quantum computing uses qubits, an entity that may exist in multiple states at the same time, for example 1, 0 and anything in between.

As Google noted, qubits are error-prone because they “tend to exchange information quickly with their surroundings.” However, Google researchers discovered a way to reduce the errors by introducing more qubits into the system and were able to correct them in real time. Their findings were published in Nature.

“This historic achievement is known in the industry as ‘below the threshold’ – the ability to reduce errors while increasing the number of qubits,” Google Quantum AI founder Hartmut Neven writes on the Google blog. “You have to show you’re below the threshold to show real progress in error correction, and that’s been a huge challenge ever since.” quantum error correction was introduced by Peter Shor in 1995.”

According to Neven, Willow, which has 105 qubits, “now has best-in-class performance.” Microsoft, Amazon and IBM are working on their own quantum computing systems.

Google’s next goal is to perform the first “useful, beyond-classical” computation that is both “relevant to real-world applications” and one that typical computers cannot perform. Neven says that in the future, quantum technology will be “essential” for collecting AI training data, which will ultimately facilitate in “discovering new drugs, designing more efficient batteries for electric cars, and accelerating progress in fusion and new energy alternatives.”