On Dec. 9, 2024, Google announced its latest quantum advancement, the Willow chip. This new quantum chip represents a breakthrough in quantum error correction, an essential step toward practical and scalable quantum systems.
One key achievement of the Willow chip is its ability to reduce errors as more qubits are added, addressing a longstanding challenge in quantum computing. Traditional quantum systems struggle with error rates that increase exponentially with scale, but Willow demonstrated “below-threshold error correction,” a method where scaling up qubits actually reduces overall noise. This capability paves the way for future large-scale, fault-tolerant quantum computers.
With 105 qubits, the Willow chip is designed to perform complex computations faster and more reliably than ever before. It was only five years ago in 2019 that Google bragged about achieving ‘quantum supremacy’ with a quantum computer that could solve a problem in 200 seconds that would take a supercomputer 10,000 years. Willow successfully completed a benchmark calculation, Random Circuit Sampling (RCS), in under five minutes—a task that would take the fastest classical supercomputers billions of years. A remarkable performance improvement in just five years.
While the Willow chip does not yet bring us to a cryptographically relevant quantum computer (CRQC)—one capable of breaking current encryption standards—it shows the accelerated pace of innovation and highlights the urgency of preparing for such an eventuality.
The need to transition to NIST post-quantum cryptography standards to stay ahead of the potential risks posed by quantum advancements has never been so urgent.
As Kevin Townsend of Security Week writes: “The real lesson for security folk is that we no longer dare delay our cryptographic migration to NIST’s post quantum and agile encryption algorithms. To do so goes beyond folly.”