Willow: What Google’s error-correcting chip means for quantum computing

Willow improves on Google’s earlier work, published in early 2023, when it described an array of 49 qubits in its Sycamore quantum processor

Google has just announced a new quantum chip, Willow, and the breakthrough needs to be read right in order to understand its implications. Yes, it is an exciting fact that Willow took under 5 minutes to perform a benchmark computation for which an existing supercomputer would need 10 septillion years, which is 1 followed by 25 zeros. The real achievement, however, is not just the computation, but also about a long-standing challenge that was conquered in getting Willow to perform

Willow is packed with logical qubits consisting of 105 physical qubits. (AFP/Google)