According to Google, it has made a significant advancement in quantum computing that might move the technology from the theoretical to the real world.
For the first time ever, the tech giant claimed to have created a cutting-edge quantum computing chip called Willow that solved a complicated calculation that would have taken a supercomputer around 10 septillion (10^25) years to finish in less than five minutes.
In a blog post on Monday, December 9, Hartmut Neven, the Google executive who founded and heads Quantum AI, the research team responsible for the discovery, stated that the Willow chip represents a significant step in a journey that started more than ten years ago.
What is quantum computing and qubits?
Words and numbers entered into traditional computers are converted into binary code, which is made up of bits with values of 0 (ground state) or 1 (excited state). A qubit, on the other hand, uses the laws of quantum mechanics to exist in both states at the same time. A qubit, for example, might have a 75% chance of having a value of 1 and a 25% chance of having a value of 0. This implies that compared to a single classical bit, a single qubit can represent more information.
Therefore, information can be processed by quantum computers in ways that are not conceivable for classical computers. They can solve issues that conventional computers are unable to.
What distinguishes supercomputers from quantum computers? Classical supercomputers excel in completing computations more quickly thanks to their sophisticated architectures and reliance on acceleration strategies like graphic processing units (GPUs) and multi-core processing. To manipulate classical bits, they rely on logic gates like AND, OR, XOR, and NOT gates, but they are still constrained by the rules of classical computing.
In contrast, quantum gates like the Pauli and H-gates are used in quantum computers. These gates are reversible and made to process qubits. “We can create circuits and algorithms and solve problems that are otherwise impossible to solve with these quantum gates,” Roy, an assistant professor in the computer science department of the Indian Institute of Technology (IIT) Kanpur, said.
What is Google’s quantum computing chip Willow?
Google said that a laboratory in Santa Barbara, California, in the United States, produced its latest cutting-edge quantum computing chip. The chip’s components, which include readout, qubit reset, and single and two-qubit gates, have been designed and integrated to prevent any latency between any two parts, which could negatively affect system performance, according to the company.
Since qubits in superposition have a tendency to exchange information with their surroundings quickly, errors are regarded as one of the biggest problems in quantum computing and can make a computation more difficult to finish. Google stated that the system will become classical and that errors will increase with the number of qubits used.
Nonetheless, the business claimed that Willow effectively reduced errors while increasing the quantity of qubits that a quantum computer could process.
From a grid of 3×3 encoded qubits to a grid of 5×5 and finally a grid of 7×7, it experimented with various arrays of physical qubits. We were able to reduce the mistake rate by half by utilizing our most recent developments in quantum error correction. Put differently, we were able to reduce the error rate exponentially,” Google stated. First of all, Willow’s quantum error correction occurs in real-time, which is essential since mistakes can destroy a calculation if they are not fixed quickly enough.
Additionally, the business claimed to have measured the Willow chip’s performance using the random circuit sampling (RCS) benchmark test.
“RCS is the classically toughest benchmark that can currently be completed on a quantum computer, having been pioneered by our team and being widely recognized as a standard in the field. It determines if a quantum computer is capable of performing tasks that a classical computer is unable to perform,” Google stated.
Google discovered that Willow was able to outperform Frontier, one of the most potent classical supercomputers in the world, in the RCS benchmark evaluation.
Google claimed that Willow’s 105 qubits now offer best-in-class performance in the two system benchmarks—random circuit sampling and quantum error correction—discussed above.
Why is Google Willow Considered Faster Than a Supercomputer?
Google’s Willow quantum device is thought to be quicker than modern supercomputers due to its extraordinary ability to do complicated computations in extremely short time frames. Here are the primary elements influencing this distinction:
1. Speed of Computation
Willow finished a benchmark computational task in under five minutes. In contrast, the identical operation would take one of today’s fastest supercomputers around 10 septillion years (or 1025 years) to complete.
This astonishing discrepancy demonstrates quantum computing’s tremendous speed advantage over classical computing platforms.
2. Qubit Technology
Willow makes use of 105 qubits, which can exist in various states at the same time due to quantum physics principles, particularly superposition.
This enables the semiconductor to do many calculations at once, considerably speeding up processing as compared to traditional bits, which operate in binary (0 or 1) states.
3. Enhanced Error Correction
Willow’s capacity to rectify errors exponentially is a significant advancement. Traditional quantum systems face errors that rise as the number of qubits increases.
Willow’s architecture, on the other hand, allows it to lower these error rates exponentially as it scales up, representing a big breakthrough in quantum error correction that academics have been working on for nearly 30 years.
This enhancement makes computations more dependable and strengthens the chip’s capacity to tackle difficult jobs successfully.
