As the world creates more data, scientists are being forced to design new technologies to process it. Current computer processing units (CPU) can only improve to a certain point. In order to meet the demands of the future, we will need all-new systems known as ‘quantum computers’.
The CPUs in quantum computers are fundamentally different to the processors in your laptop or smartphone. They are able to store and processes much more information simultaneously, which allows them to generate results much, much faster.
New quantum computers must be tested
Every new quantum computer must be tested carefully to ensure it is performing correctly. To help ensure that quantum computer error correction is working correctly, Google created the random circuit sampling (RCS) benchmark.
RCS is an advanced test that serves two purposes. First, it confirms that a quantum computer is capable of completing tasks that a ‘classical’ computer built using existing technologies cannot. Second, it measures how quickly the task is completed. As a result, the RCS benchmark is incredibly complex and processor intensive.
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Google Willow is a quantum leap forward
Google’s quantum computing team has recently developed a new quantum CPU called Willow, and they tested its capabilities with the RCS benchmark. The results were astonishing.
Willow was able to perform the benchmark test in five minutes. That doesn’t sound particularly impressive, but the world’s fastest classical supercomputer would take 10 septillion years to run the same test. How big is 10 septillion? It looks like this: 10,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000. Google claim that 10 septillion years exceeds the age of computing. If the world’s fastest computer had started running the RCS test at the dawn of time, it still wouldn’t be finished today.
What does Google Willow mean for me?
As impressive as these performance statistics may be, we’re still a long way from seeing quantum computers in action. The technology is still only suitable for theoretical applications and testing. Quantum computers cannot yet be applied to real-world computing problems – not least because error detection and correction remains a major challenge.
Google’s development roadmap has six milestones before quantum computing can become a reality. Unfortunately, Willow is just the second milestone – there are still four more to go. And each milestone represents a major engineering and design challenge.
Once these issues have been dealt with however, quantum computing will change the world. Scientists will be able to build commercially relevant algorithms to solve major problems, such as creating and testing new medications faster, or identifying potential weather issues much earlier. With its ability to process virtually infinite amounts of data, quantum computing will be able to solve problems that have previously not been humanly possible.