On Wednesday (local time), Google unveiled a groundbreaking milestone in quantum computing with its Willow chip. For the first time, it has been demonstrated that a quantum computer can successfully execute verifiable algorithms on hardware, outperforming the world's fastest classical supercomputers by an astonishing factor of 13,000. Launched in December of the previous year, the Willow chip accomplished a task in a mere five minutes that would take a traditional supercomputer 1,025 years to complete. This remarkable feat is both reproducible and verifiable. The innovative technology, dubbed "Quantum Echoes," functions akin to sophisticated echoes, facilitating measurements with unparalleled precision. This breakthrough is poised to play a pivotal role in simulating quantum mechanical phenomena in the future. In proof-of-principle experiments, the quantum computer's results aligned with those obtained through traditional nuclear magnetic resonance (NMR) techniques, while also uncovering novel insights. Google hailed this achievement as a significant stride toward the development of a "quantum viewer," with the expectation that quantum computing-enhanced NMR technology will find applications in drug discovery and materials science. The team has already witnessed exponential acceleration and anticipates reaching new milestones within the next one to two years, with the ambitious goal of possessing fault-tolerant quantum computers and scaling them up by the end of the century.
