BENGALURU: Will Google’s monumental tech revolution—the next-gen quantum computing chip, Willow—bring about civilizational change, or will it usher in a paradigm shift in services and applications across critical areas?
On December 9, the tech giant announced Willow, a next-generation quantum computing chip that “performed a computation in under five minutes, which would take one of today’s fastest supercomputers 10²⁵ years—or 10 septillion years (10,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000 years),” said Google.
Willow was fabricated in Google’s new state-of-the-art facility in Santa Barbara, USA.
“The most remarkable result achieved by the Google Quantum AI team is in the challenging area of quantum error correction. They have demonstrated that errors decrease exponentially as the number of qubits increases, thus underlining the real possibility of scalable quantum computers,” said Prof. Bhanu Das, Director of the Centre for Quantum Engineering, Research, and Education (TCG CREST) in Kolkata and Professor Emeritus at the Tokyo Institute of Technology, Japan.
“Willow is a remarkable discovery that has the potential to revolutionize various fields—from health to weather, banking, businesses, security, defence, and more—besides creating employment opportunities,” said Prof. Debabrata Das, Director of the International Institute of Information Technology-Bangalore (IIIT-B), speaking to TNIE.
“Research and innovation are meant to improve performance and reduce latency in computing. Willow will be a game-changer in the health sector by enabling accurate and fast decoding of genes and viruses, which will lead to precise diagnoses and treatments. For example, during the COVID-19 pandemic, it took four to five months to decode the virus. With a quantum computing chip like Willow, virus and gene decoding will likely become much faster and more accurate. Medicines and vaccines could then be specifically tailored to the virus,” explained Prof. Das.
He added that weather monitoring and modeling systems, which currently lack 100% accuracy, could also greatly benefit. “With climate change being a pressing reality, we need better, faster, and more accurate systems for monitoring and preparedness,” he emphasised
Das countered apprehensions around ‘Willow’ and future of fast paced technology and said, “technology has helped society grow manifolds. In the early 90’s, there were apprehensions in the banking sector regarding computers; that people will lose their jobs. Today, technology has digitised the banking sector and made it universal and seamless,” he added.
Das further said that quantum computing, when combined with artificial intelligence (AI), would yield groundbreaking advancements. “It will revolutionize critical applications in security, defense, agriculture, businesses, energy, and more,” he remarked.
On concerns about energy usage in quantum computing, Das explained, “Performance in computing depends on latency, energy consumption, and heat dissipation. Quantum computing significantly reduces latency for large and complex computations, enabling faster processing with less energy.”
However, Das acknowledged the need for further research into quantum security as the world transitions from electronic to quantum-based security systems.