Google has taken a major step towards creating a quantum computer, after unveiling a 'mind-boggling' quantum chip - its most powerful yet.
Measuring 1.5-inches (4cm) - a little larger than an After Eight mint - the chip takes five minutes to complete tasks that would take conventional computers 10 septillion years. That's 10 followed by 24 zeroes, or 10,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000 years - so more time than the history of the universe.
"Willow performed a standard benchmark computation in under five minutes that would take one of today's fastest supercomputers 10 septillion years," said Hartmut Neven, quantum scientist and founder of Google's Quantum AI lab.
Ultimately, the aim is to build a 'commercial' quantum computer - one that could be purchased by members of the public and used in labs, offices and even homes. As this is still a decade or two away at least, for now firms like Google and IBM are building 'experimental' quantum computers that are still in the research and development phase.
These ultra-powerful machines could do everything from speed up AI to solve climate change and discover lifesaving drugs. While still in its early stages, scientists believe quantum computers will eventually power innovation in fields such as AI, drug discovery, fusion energy, battery design and more.
"The next challenge for the field is to demonstrate a first 'useful beyond-classical' computation on today's quantum chips that is relevant to a real-world application," Neven added.
On X (formerly Twitter), Google CEO Sundar Pichai stated: "We see Willow as an important step in our journey to build a useful quantum computer with practical applications."
What is Willow?
- A new quantum chip from Google measuring 1.5-inch (4cm).
- Can run 105 'qubits', which exceeds its predecessor Sycamore's capacity of up to 70 qubits.
- Takes five minutes to complete tasks conventional computers would need billions of years for.
- Paves the way toward large-scale practical applications using quantum computing technology.
"Our new chip demonstrates error correction and performance that paves the way to useful large-scale quantum computing," according to Google.
Error correction remains crucial as more qubits increase computational errors; however Google's advancements show promise for overcoming these challenges effectively. Professor Winfried Hensinger called this progress "a very important milestone" but noted it’s not yet capable enough for significant industry use cases requiring millions of qubits:
"Quantum computers capable solving some really important industry problems will require millions qubits...but result increases confidence further humanity able build practical enabling high impactful applications known," he told MailOnline
The competition between tech giants continues with IBM having already developed their own Q System One available businesses researchers alike while MailOnline seeks comment regarding comparison against latest developments within sector overall expectations future growth potential remain optimistic given current trajectory ongoing investments made both parties involved respective projects underway worldwide today!