Quantum Computers: Getting Real?
Google has made striking advancements in a promising new technology. Now the government needs to do its part.
Cool.
Photographer: Mandel Ngan/AFP
Take it from Niels Bohr: “Those who are not shocked when they first come across quantum theory cannot possibly have understood it.” Much the same may be said of quantum technologies, a promising — and increasingly crucial — application of that theory.
Last week, Alphabet Inc.’s Google announced a major advancement in the field. Its quantum chip, called Willow, performed a calculation in less than five minutes that might take a regular (or “classical”) computer 10 septillion years, “a number that vastly exceeds the age of the universe,” says Hartmut Neven, manager of Google’s quantum lab. He further mused that the result “lends credence to the notion that quantum computation occurs in many parallel universes, in line with the idea that we live in a multiverse.”