Google Hardware Is Powering Quantum Breakthroughs

Today’s first-ever verifiable quantum advantage was made possible by decades of investment in hardware and scientific discovery. Today, powered by our high-performance quantum chip, Willow, we have achieved the first-ever demonstration of verifiable quantum advantage. This milestone is a critical step toward realizing useful quantum computation, a feat made possible by the precision and speed engineered into our quantum hardware systems. Willow, our state-of-the-art quantum chip, is built from superconducting quantum circuits. This field of research began with the groundbreaking discovery of the macroscopic quantum effect in 1985, an achievement that earned John Clarke, Michel Devoret, and John Martinis the status of 2025 Physics Nobel Laureates. Utilizing these circuits, superconducting qubits function as macroscopic "artificial atoms." Over the past 40 years, driven by the mature integrated circuit fabrication and active research in both academia and industry, these qubits have demonstrated...

This makes them a leading platform for building a fault-tolerant quantum computer. Building on the foundation of this leading platform, we set out to demonstrate its power in a complex, practical application, to take quantum computing closer to delivering real-world benefits for people. To reveal hidden information about the inner dynamics of quantum systems, such as molecules, we successfully executed the Quantum Echoes algorithm. This algorithm relies on reversing the flow of quantum data in the quantum computers, which in turn places strong demands on Willow's performance at the system scale. It requires running the Willow chip with a large set of quantum gates and a high volume of quantum measurements — two key elements required to distill useful signals from background noise. The current-generation Willow chip, benefiting from continuous post-release improvements, delivers best-in-class performance at scale.

Across its entire 105-qubit array, it features fidelities of 99.97% for single-qubit gates, 99.88% for entangling gates, and 99.5% for readout, all operating at an unmatched speed of tens to hundreds of nanoseconds. Algorithm performed task beyond capability of classical computers, although experts say real-world application still years away Google has claimed a breakthrough in quantum computing after developing an algorithm that performed a task beyond the capabilities of conventional computers. The algorithm, a set of instructions guiding the operation of a quantum computer, was able to compute the structure of a molecule – which paves the way for major discoveries in areas such as... Google acknowledged, however, that real-world use of quantum computers remained years away. “This is the first time in history that any quantum computer has successfully run a verifiable algorithm that surpasses the ability of supercomputers,” Google said in a blogpost.

“This repeatable, beyond-classical computation is the basis for scalable verification, bringing quantum computers closer to becoming tools for practical applications.” A cryostat in Google’s quantum-computing facility. Credit: Google Quantum AI Researchers at Google have built a chip that has enabled them to demonstrate the first ‘below threshold’ quantum calculations — a key milestone in the quest to build quantum computers that are accurate enough... Access Nature and 54 other Nature Portfolio journals Get Nature+, our best-value online-access subscription

Receive 51 print issues and online access Google Quantum AI has demonstrated what it describes as a verifiable quantum advantage — running a new algorithm on quantum hardware that outperforms classical supercomputers by a factor of 13,000. The breakthrough, announced on Wednesday, marks the first time a quantum computer has executed a verifiable algorithm with real-world applications, potentially accelerating enterprise workloads in computational chemistry, molecular modeling, and materials engineering that are... The achievement centers on Google’s Willow quantum chip, a 105-qubit superconducting processor, executing what the company calls its Quantum Echoes algorithm, technically an out-of-time-order correlator (OTOC), a method for measuring how disturbances spread through... “This is the first time in history that any quantum computer has successfully run a verifiable algorithm that surpasses the ability of supercomputers,” Google said in a statement announcing the breakthrough, which was also... Unlike previous quantum milestones that demonstrated computational power on abstract problems, Google emphasized that this marks a practical shift.

Google has unveiled a new chip which it claims takes five minutes to solve a problem that would currently take the world's fastest super computers ten septillion – or 10,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000 years – to complete. The chip is the latest development in a field known as quantum computing - which is attempting to use the principles of particle physics to create a new type of mind-bogglingly powerful computer. Google says its new quantum chip, dubbed "Willow", incorporates key "breakthroughs" and "paves the way to a useful, large-scale quantum computer." However experts say Willow is, for now, a largely experimental device, meaning a quantum computer powerful enough to solve a wide range of real-world problems is still years - and billions of dollars -... Quantum computers work in a fundamentally different way to the computer in your phone or laptop. The research, published in the academic journal Nature, represents an essential step in quantum computing and demonstrates its potential by directly simulating fundamental interactions with Google's quantum processor.

In the future, researchers could use this approach to gain deeper insights into particle physics, quantum materials, and even the nature of space and time itself. The aim is to understand how nature works at its most fundamental level, described by so-called gauge theories. "Our work shows how quantum computers can help us explore the fundamental rules that govern our universe," says co-author Michael Knap, Professor of Collective Quantum Dynamics at the TUM School of Natural Sciences. "By simulating these interactions in the laboratory, we can test theories in new ways." Pedram Roushan, co-author of this work from Google Quantum AI emphasizes: "Harnessing the power of the quantum processor, we studied the dynamics of a specific type of gauge theory and observed how particles and... Tyler Cochran, first author and graduate student at Princeton, says: "By adjusting effective parameters in the model, we could tune properties of the strings.

They can fluctuate strongly, become tightly confined, or even break." He explains that the data from the quantum processor reveals the hallmark behaviors of such strings, which have direct analogs to phenomena in high-energy... The results underscore the potential for quantum computers to facilitate scientific discovery in fundamental physics and beyond. The research was supported, in part, by the UK Research and Innovation (UKRI) under the UK government’s Horizon Europe funding guarantee [grant number EP/Y036069/1], the Deutsche Forschungsgemeinschaft (DFG, German Research Foundation) under Germany’s Excellence... KN1254/1-2, KN1254/2-1, DFG FOR 5522 Research Unit (project id 499180199), the European Research Council (ERC) under the European Union’s Horizon 2020 research and innovation programme (grant agreement No. 851161 and No. 771537), the European Union (grant agreement No 101169765), as well as the Munich Quantum Valley, which is supported by the Bavarian state government with funds from the Hightech Agenda Bayern Plus.

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