Google has unveiled a new quantum chip, which the tech giant claims can perform calculations in under five minutes that it would take one of today’s fastest supercomputers ten septillion years to complete – longer than the age of the universe.

Google claims that the new chip, dubbed ‘Willow’, can also exponentially reduce errors by scaling up the use of qubits, or quantum-bits – the basic unit of information used by quantum computers, equivalent to the binary bits used in classical computing.

According to the company, this cracks a key challenge in quantum error correction, where until now increasing the number of qubits has seen error rates skyrocket, a problem pursued in the field for almost thirty years. 

Testing the quantum chip further, Google said it found Willow capable of performing calculations at ‘astonishing’ speed, outpacing one of the world’s most powerful classical supercomputers, Frontier.

The tech firm claims that the results lend credence to the idea that quantum computation occurs across parallel universes, and could align with theories supporting the existence of a multiverse.

Writing a blog post on the new quantum chip, Hartmut Neven, founder and lead of Google Quantum AI, said: “When I founded Google Quantum AI in 2012, the vision was to build a useful, large-scale quantum computer that could harness quantum mechanics…to benefit society by advancing scientific discovery, developing helpful applications, and tackling some of society’s greatest challenges. 

“As part of Google Research, our team has charted a long-term roadmap, and Willow moves us significantly along that path towards commercially relevant applications.”

Right now, the new chip is still experimental, and some have already questioned the practical uses of Google’s quantum designs.

Writing on X, German physicist, YouTuber, and former research fellow at the Frankfurt Institute for Advanced Science, Sabine Hossenfelder, said that although the new quantum chip was ‘impressive’ from a scientific perspective, estimates say around 1 million qubits are needed for practically useful applications, far exceeding the numbers Google is currently working with.

In 2019, Google reported hitting a similar quantum milestone, with a team of researchers achieving a ‘breakthrough’ in quantum supremacy, the term the company used to describe a quantum computer solving a problem that would take a classical computer an impractically long amount of time.

That claim was disputed by IBM, which argued that the same task run in Google’s quantum trial could be performed on a classical system in just over two days, and with greater fidelity, concluding that although it was a demonstration of progress, Google’s result should not be viewed as proof for the ‘supremacy’ of quantum computing.   

Despite the uncertainty over its practical applications, there has recently been a race to develop and implement quantum technology at scale.

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This year saw the UK Government open a National Quantum Computing Centre, a 4,000 square metre facility housing twelve quantum computers offering open access to quantum innovators across industry and academia. 

Plans are already in place for the UK to take advantage of quantum tech, with a Quantum Technology Missions Roadmap being launched last month, and the government issuing procurement notices in the hunt for technology partners to drive forward its ambitions.

Expectations surrounding quantum technology are rising, as evidenced by recent predictions from Juniper Research, which claimed the commercial revenue from quantum technology could dramatically increase from $2.7 bn (£2bn) in 2024 to $9.4bn (£7.1bn) by 2030.