Google debuts Willow quantum computing chip

Google has announced its latest quantum computing chip, 'Willow,' claiming that the processor performed a standard benchmark computation in under five minutes, which would otherwise take 1025 years on a conventional supercomputer. Google said that the new chip has 105 qubits, which can retain an excitation (be useful) for nearly 100 microseconds, five times better than its previous hardware.

"As the first system below threshold, this is the most convincing prototype for a scalable logical qubit built to date," Hartmut Neven, founder and lead of Google Quantum AI, said. "It’s a strong sign that useful, very large quantum computers can indeed be built. Willow brings us closer to running practical, commercially-relevant algorithms that can’t be replicated on conventional computers."

Neven addressed the incident in his Willow announcement: "Of course, as happened after we announced the first beyond-classical computation in 2019, we expect classical computers to keep improving on this benchmark, but the rapidly growing gap shows that quantum processors are peeling away at a double exponential rate and will continue to vastly outperform classical computers as we scale up."