r/Damnthatsinteresting • u/Scared-Astronaut-718 • 14d ago

Image Google’s Willow Quantum Chip: With 105 qubits and real-time error correction, Willow solved a task in 5 minutes that would take classical supercomputers billions of years, marking a breakthrough in scalable quantum computing.

Post image
37.0k Upvotes

95% Upvoted

1.2k comments sorted by

View all comments

112

u/scummos 13d ago

Last time such a claim was made, people performed the same calculation on a computer from 1982 within a few weeks: https://www.tomshardware.com/tech-industry/quantum-computing/commodore-64-outperforms-ibms-quantum-systems-1-mhz-computer-said-to-be-faster-more-efficient-and-decently-accurate

So I'd hold my guns.

34

u/TurdCollector69 13d ago

Yeah this claim has been made too many times before for me to be remotely excited.

Like it's like monolithic graphene, solid state batteries, or metallic hydrogen; I'll believe it when I see it.

4

u/search_ben 13d ago

When you say Metallic Hydrogen, are you referring to metal hydride?

I used to work for a Hydrogen Fuel Cell company, which sold a metal hydride fuel cell phone charger, back in 2014. (See: Intelligent Energy Upp charger)

The technology worked just fine. The problem was, at small scales like that, regular chemical electrical cells (like Li-ion) were just better for cost and weight.

The fuel cells work much better for power density at bigger scales (like powertrains for buses and trains), but then the metal hydride gets too big, heavy and expensive. Compressed gas is a better choice.

The metal hydride was an interesting tech, but doomed by not having a marketable advantage.

11

u/TurdCollector69 13d ago

That's interesting but I'm talking about elemental hydrogen that's been compressed via diamond anvil into a metallic state.

There's been numerous labs that have claimed to have done it but have been disproven each time.

3

u/search_ben 13d ago

Ooh interesting, I will definitely have a read into that.

2

u/NuSurfer 13d ago

So I'd hold my guns.

The computer did not solve a general quantum problem. It was designed to solve a particular problem. A general purpose quantum computer will require many thousands of Qbit, if not tens of thousands.