Shares of Google (NASDAQ:GOOGL) saw a 4% increase in pre-open trading Tuesday, reflecting investor confidence following the company’s unveiling of its new quantum computing chip, Willow. Sundar Pichai, CEO of Google, introduced the chip on Monday, highlighting its ability to significantly reduce computational errors and its performance in benchmark tests.
Pichai emphasized the chip’s potential in practical applications, stating, “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.”
The new chip, according to Pichai, has achieved two major milestones. It can exponentially decrease errors with the addition of more qubits, addressing a quantum error correction challenge that has persisted for nearly three decades. In addition, Willow completed a standard benchmark computation in less than five minutes, a task that would take one of the fastest supercomputers today more than 10 septillion years.
This development is part of Google’s long-term commitment to quantum computing, a vision that began over a decade ago when Pichai founded Google Quantum (NASDAQ:QMCO) AI in 2012. The goal is to build a quantum computer that leverages quantum mechanics to advance scientific discovery and address societal challenges.
The announcement drew a simple yet telling reaction from Tesla (NASDAQ:TSLA) CEO Elon Musk, who expressed his astonishment with a single word, “wow,” on social media platform X.
The Willow chip represents a significant advancement for Google Quantum AI and positions the company closer to achieving commercially viable quantum computing applications.
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