Google’s Willow quantum chip can perform a mathematical problem in less than five minutes that would otherwise take 10 septillion years. (Image Credit: Google Quantum AI)
Google announced that its quantum computer chip — Willow — recently made two benchmark achievements. For starters, Willow reduced errors as more qubits were added, solving a major quantum error correction challenge pursued for nearly 30 years. Additionally, Willow performed a standard computation in less than five minutes that would take 10 septillion years for one of the fastest supercomputers to solve.
Elon Musk replied with “wow” in response to the Willow announcement. He also conversed with Sundar Pichai on X, saying, “We should do a quantum cluster in space with Starship one day :).” Musk replied, “That will probably happen. Any self-respecting civilization should at least reach Kardashev Type II. In my opinion, we are currently only at <5% of Type I. To get to ~30%, we would need to place solar panels in all desert or highly arid regions.”
Qubits are more error-prone as they tend to rapidly exchange information with their environment. The team discovered a workaround for this issue—adding more qubits to the chip to reduce and correct errors. They started with small physical array qubits—a grid of 3x3 before progressing to 5x5 and 7x7. Using their advanced quantum error correction technology, Google's researchers cut the error rate in half.
“This historic accomplishment is known in the field as ‘below threshold’ — being able to drive errors down while scaling up the number of qubits. You must demonstrate being below threshold to show real progress on error correction, and this has been an outstanding challenge since quantum error correction was introduced by Peter Shor in 1995,” Hartmut Neven, Google Quantum AI founder, wrote in the blog post.
Willow, with 105 qubits, had its performance tested via the random circuit sampling (RCS) benchmark. It churned out some amazing results---solving a mathematical challenge in less than five minutes that would take one of the fastest supercomputers 10 septillion years. These are the best results for the Willow chip, and the team says it will keep progressing.
Google is aiming to perform the first “useful, beyond-classical” computation on today’s quantum chops relevant to a real-world application. Neven believes quantum computation “will be indispensable for collecting training data that’s inaccessible to classical machines, training and optimizing certain learning architectures, and modeling systems where quantum effects are important.” This can help humanity design more efficient EV batteries, accelerate advancements in fusion and new energy alternatives, and discover new medicines. Classical computers won’t be able to run many of these applications---something only quantum computing can achieve.
Have a story tip? Message me at: http://twitter.com/Cabe_Atwell
