Google’s Quantum chip claims 13,000x speed advantage over supercomputers

Sujet: Google’s Quantum chip claims 13,000x speed advantage over supercomputers
Date: 27 octobre 2025

The Willow processor runs the first verifiable algorithm with real-world applications, marking shift from theory to practical quantum computing.

Google Quantum AI has demonstrated what it describes as a verifiable quantum advantage running a new algorithm on quantum hardware that outperforms classical supercomputers by a factor of 13,000.

The breakthrough, announced on Wednesday, marks the first time a quantum computer has executed a verifiable algorithm with real-world applications, potentially accelerating enterprise workloads in computational chemistry, molecular modeling, and materials engineering that are currently constrained by classical computing limitations.

The achievement centers on Googles Willow quantum chip, a 105-qubit superconducting processor, executing what the company calls its Quantum Echoes algorithm, technically an out-of-time-order correlator (OTOC), a method for measuring how disturbances spread through quantum systems.

This is the first time in history that any quantum computer has successfully run a verifiable algorithm that surpasses the ability of supercomputers, Google said in a statement announcing the breakthrough, which was also published in Nature.
Unlike previous quantum milestones that demonstrated computational power on abstract problems, Google emphasized that this marks a practical shift.
Quantum verifiability means the result can be repeated on our quantum computer or any other of the same caliber to get the same answer, confirming the result, the statement explained, distinguishing reproducible quantum computing from experimental demonstrations.

The company specified that the 13,000x performance advantage refers to the OTOC algorithm running on Willow compared to the best classical algorithm on one of the worlds fastest supercomputers, though it did not identify which specific supercomputer served as the benchmark.

The announcement positions Google ahead in the intensifying quantum race. IBM is targeting a 200-logical-qubit system called Starling by 2029, while Microsoft, in February 2025, introduced its Majorana 1 chip based on topological qubits, claiming a path to one million qubits on a single chip. Similarly, IonQ, using trapped ion technology, had demonstrated a 12% speed advantage over classical supercomputers in medical device simulation in March 2025.

The Quantum Echoes algorithm sends precisely crafted signals through Willows quantum system, perturbing a single qubit, then reversing the signals evolution. We send a carefully crafted signal into our quantum system (qubits on Willow chip), perturb one qubit, then precisely reverse the signals evolution to listen for the echo that comes back, Google explained.

This quantum echo is special because it gets amplified by constructive interference a phenomenon where quantum waves add up to become stronger. This makes our measurement incredibly sensitive, the statement added.