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Alphabet Shares Jump 6% After Google Launches "Willow" Chip

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Business Honor
11 December, 2024

Alphabet's shares rise 6% after Google unveils breakthrough quantum computing chip, Willow.

Alphabet shares rose 6% on Tuesday after the subsidiary Google announced a major advance in quantum computing with its new quantum computing chip, "Willow." The new chip is said to outperform the one Google presented in 2019 by several orders of magnitude and thus establishes a new record in this field.

Quantum computing uses "qubits" instead of using traditional semiconductors and can do much more powerful computation based on quantum mechanics. Willow is different from a traditional processor that represents data with transistors; it uses quantum bits which can exist in multiple states at the same time and allows much faster processing of complex problems. Willow has about 100 qubits, and Google plans to scale up the system to an astonishing 1 million qubits in future phases.

The new chip is the second step in Google's six-step strategy toward building quantum computers that can solve practical, commercially relevant problems—the kinds of things that cannot be solved by a traditional computer. According to Google CEO Sundar Pichai, Willow marks an important step toward making quantum computing more practical and applicable to diverse fields, such as drug discovery, fusion energy, and battery design.

However, despite promising technology, experts say practical quantum computing, such as large-scale simulations and tasks like code-breaking, may still be years, if not decades, away. Google is not alone in its pursuit; other tech giants, such as IBM, Microsoft, and Nvidia, are working on quantum advancements.

This was applauded even by the biggest names in tech, including Tesla CEO Elon Musk and OpenAI CEO Sam Altman. While there was some banter in what Pichai said on the quantum cluster in space with Starship one day, more people now showed enthusiasm about the future for quantum computing.

This development underlines Google's continued leadership in the field of quantum computation, promising change across a whole host of industries over the next few years.