Google's new quantum chip solves in 5 minutes what would take a classical computer billions of years

Google announced on Monday a significant advancement in quantum computing as it unveiled its next-generation chip called Willow. This new chip, developed at the company’s quantum lab in Santa Barbara, California, was able to solve a complex mathematical problem in just five minutes — a task that would take classical computers longer than the history of the universe. “Willow performed a standard benchmark computation in under five minutes that would take one of today’s fastest supercomputers 10 septillion years — a number that vastly exceeds the age of the Universe”, Google wrote in a blogpost. While the problem solved by Google’s chip has no immediate commercial application, the company envisions quantum computers tackling challenges in medicine, battery technology, and artificial intelligence that are beyond the scope of today's machines. In 2019, Google faced criticism from IBM over its claim that an earlier quantum chip had solved a problem classical computers would take 10,000 years to complete.