Google announced a significant advancement in the creation of a commercial quantum computer on Tuesday, unveiling test outcomes for its Willow quantum chip. The findings indicate that the greater the number of qubits Google utilized in Willow, the more errors it mitigated and the more quantum the system became.
“Google’s success in quantum error correction is a crucial milestone towards feasible quantum computing,” stated Florian Neukart, chief product officer at Terra Quantum, a developer focused on quantum algorithms, computing solutions, and security applications, based in Saint Gallen, Switzerland.
“It tackles one of the biggest challenges — sustaining coherence and minimizing errors during computation,” he conveyed to TechNewsWorld.
Qubits, the fundamental unit of information in quantum computing, are highly susceptible to environmental factors. Any disturbances in their vicinity can lead them to forfeit their quantum characteristics, a phenomenon referred to as decoherence. Keeping qubit stability — or coherence — sufficiently long to carry out useful computations has presented a considerable obstacle for developers.
Decoherence further causes quantum computers to be prone to errors, which underscores the significance of Google’s announcement. Effective error correction is vital for the advancement of a practical quantum computer. “Willow signifies an essential milestone in the pursuit of fault-tolerant quantum computing,” remarked Rebecca Krauthamer, CEO of QuSecure, a provider of quantum-safe security solutions located in San Mateo, Calif.
“It brings us one step closer to achieving commercially viable quantum systems,” she informed TechNewsWorld.
Progress Toward Large-Scale Quantum Computing
In a company blog, Google Vice President of Engineering Hartmut Neven detailed that researchers experimented with increasingly larger arrays of physical qubits, moving from a grid of 3×3 encoded qubits, to a grid of 5×5, and then to a grid of 7×7. With each progression, they halved the error rate. “In other words, we accomplished an exponential reduction in the error rate,” he noted.
“This groundbreaking achievement is referred to as ‘below threshold’ — the ability to decrease errors while increasing the number of qubits,” he added. “The machines are extremely sensitive, and noise accumulates from both external factors and usage itself,” mentioned Simon Fried, vice president for business development and marketing at Classiq, a company that develops software for quantum computers, situated in Tel Aviv, Israel.
“Being able to reduce noise or counteract it enables the execution of longer, more intricate programs,” he communicated to TechNewsWorld. “This marks significant advancement in chip technology due to the inherent stability of the hardware and its capacity for noise management,” he emphasized.
Neven also pointed out that as the first system below the threshold, this represents the most convincing prototype for a scalable logical qubit created so far. “It’s a strong indicator that operational, very large quantum computers can indeed be constructed,” he expressed. “Willow brings us nearer to executing practical, commercially relevant algorithms that cannot be reproduced on traditional computers. “
