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Key Takeaways
- Google parent Alphabet’s shares rose more than 5% Tuesday after the company unveiled a “breakthrough” quantum computing chip called Willow.
- Willow can complete computations in minutes that would take supercomputers 10 septillion years, Google said.
- The chip is part of Google’s roadmap toward a quantum computer with applications in drug discovery, fusion energy, battery design, and more, CEO Sundar Pichai said.
Shares of Google parent Alphabet (GOOGL) (GOOG) surged to their highest level since July after the company unveiled Willow, a quantum computing chip it said can complete computations in less than five minutes that would take some of today’s fastest supercomputers 10 septillion years.
In a blog post Monday, Google Quantum AI founder and lead Hartmut Neven pointed to Willow’s ability to reduce errors exponentially as it uses more qubits, the units of information computation in quantum computing. (A septillion, by the way, is a 1 followed by 24 zeroes—15 more than are in a billion.)
Historically, quantum chips have produced more errors the more qubits are used, Neven said.
Willow Hits Second of Six Google Quantum Milestones
That phenomenon, known as “quantum error correction,” is the second of six milestones on Google’s quantum computing roadmap, which culminates in a “large, error-corrected quantum computer.”
“We see Willow as an important step in our journey to build a useful quantum computer with practical applications in areas like drug discovery, fusion energy, battery design + more,” Google Chief Executive Officer (CEO) Sundar Pichai said Monday on X.
Shares of Alphabet added more than 5% Tuesday to close at $186.53 and are up more than 30% this year.
