Alphabet (NASDAQ:GOOG) (NASDAQ:GOOGL) CEO Sundar Pichai said the tech giant’s quantum computing chip, known as Willow, has achieved the “first-ever verifiable quantum advantage.”
“Willow ran the algorithm — which we’ve named Quantum Echoes — 13,000x faster than the best classical algorithm on one of the world’s fastest supercomputers,” Pichai said in a post on X.
“This new algorithm can explain interactions between atoms in a molecule using nuclear magnetic resonance, paving a path towards potential future uses in drug discovery and materials science. And the result is verifiable, meaning its outcome can be repeated by other quantum computers or confirmed by experiments. This breakthrough is a significant step toward the first real-world application of quantum computing, and we’re excited to see where it leads.”
Alphabet shares rose 1.8% in late morning trading, following Pichai’s post.
The results were published in the scientific journal Nature. Google subsequently described its achievement in multiple blog posts.
Google unveiled the Willow quantum chip in December 2024, describing it then as “mind-boggling.”
At the time, Google said Willow was capable of handling complex calculations in a span of five minutes, while the world’s most powerful supercomputers would need 10 septillion years.
“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,” Pichai said at the time.