‘Trillions of times faster than the world’s fastest supercomputer’: Why Google’s new chip is so ‘incredible’
Google says its chip can do a task in just five minutes that would take the world's fastest supercomputer millions of years to do, according to the company.
Article Description
Author, Chris Vallance
Position, Senior Technology Correspondent
December 10, 2024, 11:01 PKT
Pros:
1. Unparalleled Speed: Claims to be trillions of times faster than current supercomputers, drastically reducing computation time for complex tasks.
2. Energy Efficiency: Advanced architecture could lead to significant reductions in energy consumption.
3. Breakthrough in AI and Quantum Computing: Designed to handle advanced AI algorithms and quantum computing tasks with unprecedented speed.
4. New Applications: Opens doors to innovations in fields like healthcare, climate modeling, and space exploration.
5. Future-Ready Technology: Sets a foundation for more advanced computing technologies in the coming decades.
Cons:
1. Implementation Challenges: Adopting such technology may require extensive overhauls in existing systems.
2. Cost: The initial development and deployment might be prohibitively expensive for many industries.
3. Access and Equity: Potential to widen the technology gap between developed and developing nations.
4. Ethical Concerns: Superfast computing power might intensify concerns around AI ethics, data privacy, and cybersecurity.
5. Uncertain Compatibility: May face compatibility issues with current hardware and software infrastructures.
Google has claimed to have developed a chip that it says is millions of times faster than the world's fastest supercomputer. Google says its chip can do a task in just five minutes that would take the world's fastest supercomputer 10,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000 years (a septillion, a one followed by 24 zeros!) to do.
Google's new chip is the latest innovation in the world of quantum computing. Quantum computing is an attempt to create new types of computers using the principles of particle physics.
According to Google, its new chip, Willow, incorporates breakthroughs in quantum computing, paving the way for the development of new, efficient quantum computers that operate on a large scale.
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However, experts believe that Willow is still an experimental device, which means that the invention of a quantum computer that can solve all kinds of problems is still a long way off.
How do quantum computers work?
The way quantum computers work is completely different from the computers in your laptop or smartphone. These computers work many times faster than traditional computers using quantum mechanics. Quantum mechanics refers to the behavior shown by very small particles that are being tried to be understood.
It is hoped that quantum computers will be able to take advantage of these capabilities, as a result of which quantum computers will be able to perform even the most complex tasks in a very short time, such as preparing medicines, etc.
However, there are also concerns that these quantum computers can be used for wrong purposes, such as accessing sensitive data protected by encryption.
In February of this year, Apple announced that it had made Apple's iMessages encryption quantum-proof so that these messages could not be accessed using quantum computers.
Hartmut Niven is the head of Google's Quantum AI Lab, which created Willow.
Niven told the BBC that Willow will be used in some practical applications. However, he did not provide any further details about this.
He said that it would still take years to create a quantum chip that could be used in commercial applications.
According to Niven, these applications will initially be used to simulate tasks where quantum effects are important, such as the design of nuclear fusion reactors, the manufacture of medicines, the creation of better car batteries and other tasks of this nature.
According to him, Willow is the best quantum computer built to date.
Will quantum computers replace traditional computers?
Professor Alan Woodward, a computing expert at the University of Surrey, says that quantum computers will be able to do many things much better than traditional computers, but they are still not a replacement for the computers we use every day.
He warns that Willow's capabilities should not be exaggerated based on just one test.
He says that the program that Google chose to test Willow's performance is designed specifically for quantum computers and that this cannot be taken to mean that this chip is much faster than traditional computers.
But Woodward also acknowledges that Willow is an indication of the progress being made in quantum computing, especially in error correction.
Simply put, the more qubits a quantum computer has, the better it can perform. A qubit, or quantum bit, is the basic unit of information in quantum computing.
However, a fundamental problem with this technology is that it is very prone to errors, and as you increase the number of qubits, these errors increase.
But Google says it has found a solution to this problem and the new chip is programmed in such a way that as its number of qubits increases, the chances of errors will decrease.
Google says its new chip is programmed to make errors less likely as its qubits increase.
Niven calls it a breakthrough, a challenge that has been in the works for the past 30 years.
Professor Woodward says the results are encouraging for anyone trying to build a practical quantum computer.
But Google also acknowledges that to build a practical quantum computer, the error rate needs to be much lower than Willow's current rate.
Willow is being built at Google's purpose-built facility in California.
Other countries around the world are also investing in quantum computers. The UK recently opened its National Quantum Computing Centre.
Michael Cuthbert, the head of the centre, sees Willow as more of a milestone than a breakthrough. But he says it is still a surprise.
He says that one day a quantum computer will help with many tasks, including “logistics problems such as distributing cargo freight on an airplane or routing telecom signals or transmitting stored energy across the national grid.”
There are 50 quantum businesses in the UK employing 1,300 people and they have so far received investment of 800 million pounds.
On Friday, Oxford University and Osaka University in Japan released a research paper. The paper says that the error rate in trapped ion qubits is very low.
Their quantum computer is built differently, which is able to work at room temperature, while Google’s chip requires extremely low temperatures to work.
The results of Google’s quantum chip Willow have been published in the scientific journal Nature External.
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#Science #Technology #Google
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