Google

Overview

Google's latest quantum chip is named Willow, a 105-qubit processor unveiled in December 2024. It is a significant step towards a practical, large-scale quantum computer, building on its predecessor, the Sycamore chip.

Key Capabilities and Achievements of Willow

• Error Correction Breakthrough: Willow is the first system to demonstrate "below threshold" quantum error correction, meaning the more qubits used, the more errors are reduced. This is a critical challenge that has been pursued for nearly 30 years and is essential for building scalable and reliable quantum computers.
• Verifiable Quantum Advantage: In an October 2025 announcement, Google demonstrated the first-ever "verifiable quantum advantage" using an algorithm called "Quantum Echoes" on the Willow chip. The algorithm ran 13,000 times faster than the best classical algorithm on one of the world's fastest supercomputers.
• Immense Speed: In a standard benchmark computation (random circuit sampling), Willow completed a task in under five minutes that would take today's fastest supercomputer an estimated 10 septillion (10²⁵) years to finish.
• Potential Applications: The ability to run the Quantum Echoes algorithm, which can explain interactions between atoms in a molecule, brings quantum computing closer to real-world applications in drug discovery, materials science (e.g., battery design), and AI.

Predecessor: Sycamore

The Sycamore processor, Google's previous chip, achieved "quantum supremacy" (now often called "beyond-classical computation") in 2019. It famously performed a calculation in 200 seconds that would have taken a classical supercomputer about 10,000 years, proving that quantum hardware could outperform classical computers on a specific, complex problem.

Google continues to work on developing new quantum algorithms and scaling up its processors, with the ultimate goal of building a useful, large-scale, fault-tolerant quantum computer.