PC Tech Willow quantum computing

[Remarkableriots]

Google unveils Willow quantum computing chip

FINANCE.YAHOO.COM

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The new chip has 105 "qubits," which are said to be the ‘building blocks’ of quantum computers.

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Google has unveiled its latest quantum computing chip, Willow, which the company claims can solve a problem in just five minutes— a task that would currently take the world's fastest supercomputers ten septillion years to complete.

Is this as grounding as it sounds?

 

[TwinIon]

I think the thing that puts this in perspective is towards the end of Google's blog post about Willow where they talk about what is next: making it actually useful.

 

 

The RCS benchmark is specifically designed to be both extremely difficult for classical computers to do, but also very easy for quantum computers. It's a good way of saying "this thing does what we expect it to, and is very good at something that a normal computer can't." It's just not useful thing to do.

 

This does seem like a pretty big deal in quantum computing, but it's just one more necessary step towards making them do anything meaningful. They're getting close to something useful, but they're not quite there yet. Both Google and IBM have been making good progress the last couple years, but we're still years away from these things doing something that a classical computer couldn't reasonably do and is actually useful in any way.