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Google's quantum computing division unveiled a new chip, dubbed Willow, that the tech giant says makes it infinitely faster and better than existing supercomputers.
The chip addresses two major problems with quantum computers as we know them today. First, Google claims Willow can reduce quantum computing errors "exponentially." Quantum computers, as Microsoft's Azure Quantum explains, are more prone to errors than classical computers because they exist in fragile states.
And researchers believe that quantum computers need more qubits to be more powerful—but more qubits also means more errors. Tackling this error issue has long been one of the quantum computing sector's largest challenges—one Google may be able to tackle.
"The more qubits we use in Willow, the more we reduce errors, and the more quantum the system becomes," writes Google Quantum AI lead Hartmut Neven (a qubit is a basic unit of quantum information, and the building block for a quantum computer).
"We tested ever-larger arrays of physical qubits, scaling up from a grid of 3x3 encoded qubits, to a grid of 5x5, to a grid of 7x7—and each time, using our latest advances in quantum error correction, we were able to cut the error rate in half. In other words, we achieved an exponential reduction in the error rate," Neven continued.
Google has been working on quantum chips for the past decade. Its latest Willow chip is so fast that it can complete a computation in less than five minutes that would take a leading supercomputer of today like the Frontier supercomputer in Tennessee 10 septillion years, or 10,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000 years, which is technically older than the universe itself, according to the company.
"It lends credence to the notion that quantum computation occurs in many parallel universes, in line with the idea that we live in a multiverse," Neven said, citing David Deutsch's prediction detailed in his 1997 book The Fabric of Reality.
In 2019, Google previously did a quantum computation in 200 seconds that would have taken the fastest supercomputer at that time 10,000 years. But IBM dismissed its claims, arguing that a classical computer could do the same calculation with greater "fidelity" in 2.5 days and argued that "quantum supremacy" had yet to be achieved.
While quantum computers are arguably still in their early stages, some researchers have already started to show how such machines might be able to disrupt our lives in the future—or potentially make them better. Chinese researchers have begun to crack military-grade with one machine, partly affirming a theory that quantum computers could eventually make present-day encryption methods obsolete.
But quantum computers could also help us better understand the universe, and could solve difficult computational problems. As the industry develops, some quantum firms are also looking to establish manufacturing in North America to ensure American and Canadian national security.