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Google's Willow chip shows errors can shrink as qubits grow

Dec 9, 2024

Google reports in Nature that on its new Willow chip, error-protected logical qubits got better as they grew from 3x3 to 7x7 grids of qubits, roughly halving the error rate at each step. Google also says Willow ran a benchmark in under five minutes that would take a supercomputer 10 septillion years.

Why it matters

Errors that fall as codes grow, known as working "below threshold", are the basic requirement for building large, fault-tolerant quantum computers, and had been a goal since 1995.

Hartmut Neven · Google

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Sources (3)

  • Google Blog Meet Willow, our state-of-the-art quantum chip
    Primary sourceDec 9, 2024
    “We tested ever-larger arrays of physical qubits, scaling up from a grid of 3x3 encoded qubits, to a grid of 5x5, to a grid of 7x7 — and each time, using our latest advances in quantum error correction, we were able to cut the error rate in half.”
  • Nature Quantum error correction below the surface code threshold
    Primary sourceDec 9, 2024
    “Here we present two below-threshold surface code memories on our newest generation of superconducting processors, Willow: a distance-7 code and a distance-5 code integrated with a real-time decoder.”
  • Quanta Magazine Quantum Computers Cross Critical Error Threshold
    Independent coverageDec 9, 2024
    “Now, in a paper published today in Nature, Newman and his colleagues at Google Quantum AI have finally crossed the threshold. They transformed a group of physical qubits into a single logical qubit, then showed that as they added more physical qubits to the group, the logical qubit's error rate dropped sharply.”

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