After the quantum computing research team won the Nobel Prize in Physics, Google has made another breakthrough. On October 22 local time, Google released a press release on its official website, announcing that its new quantum chip Willow successfully ran a new algorithm "Quantum Echoes" (Quantum Echoes), achieving the world's first Verifiable Quantum Advantage. The achievement has been published in the top academic journal Nature.
Google's CEO Sundar Pichai later posted on X (formerly Twitter) to celebrate this milestone, calling it "a significant step for quantum computing toward practical applications."
13,000 Times Faster than Supercomputers: Quantum Chip Willow Demonstrates Overwhelming Performance
According to Google, the Willow chip successfully executed the Quantum Echoes algorithm, a quantum algorithm used to simulate interactions between molecules. In tests, the world's fastest classical supercomputer Frontier required 3.2 years to complete the same computing task, while Willow completed it in just 2.1 hours, achieving a speed increase of approximately 13,000 times.
This algorithm breakthrough has real-world significance: it can analyze molecular structures and atomic interactions using nuclear magnetic resonance, providing new computational methods for new drug development, materials science, and chemical simulations.
Nobel Prize Achievements Come to Life: Quantum Control Lays the Technical Foundation
The research was led by this year's newly awarded Nobel Prize winner in Physics, Professor Michel Devoret from Yale University. Devoret previously received the prize for his foundational work in quantum control and superconducting quantum circuits, which is the key technical support behind the Willow chip and the Quantum Echoes algorithm.
The research team emphasized that the uniqueness of this achievement lies in the fact that the results can be reproduced by other quantum computers or verified through experiments. This means that quantum advantage has moved from theoretical computation into the realm of verifiable reality for the first time.
