With the help of the Willow computer chip, a quantum computer can calculate in five minutes what would have taken supercomputers longer than the age of the known universe.
The technology company Google announces that it has made a new technological breakthrough.
Google tellsthat with its Willow computer chip, the company’s quantum computer is able to perform a calculation in five minutes that would have taken the world’s most powerful supercomputers 10,000,000,000,000,000,000,000 years. It’s a huge number, a number one followed by 25 zeros. That’s a longer time in years than the known universe.
– The achievement means that by the end of the decade, quantum computers can enable scientific breakthroughs that are not possible even with the most powerful supercomputers imaginable, said the chief operating officer of Google’s quantum division Charina Chou For Nature magazine.
A quantum machine stumbles upon mistakes
Ordinary computers chew puzzles using bits that are either ones or zeros. A quantum computer uses qubits instead of bits. They don’t have ones and zeroes, but combinations of them.
As the number of qubits increases, the power of a quantum computer increases exponentially.
The biggest problem of quantum computers also lies in qubits, as they share information sensitively with their environment and are prone to errors. The more qubits are used, the more errors occur.
Now Google presents In a study published in the journal Naturethat the opposite happens in the Willow system. According to Google, its technology has broken the error threshold that has previously prevented quantum computers from being used effectively.
It is still an experimental level, but for example British newspaper The Guardian with the help of artificial intelligence, this technology could, for example, be used to study magnetic images at the atomic level.
The field of quantum research is critically important to many nations. For example, China and the United States have invested considerable sums in the development of technology.
According to information from the AFP news agency, over the past five years, approximately 20 billion dollars have been invested in quantum research in various parts of the world. The figure includes private and public investments.
The matter has also been reported on, among other things The New York Times.
AFP