Today, powered by our high-performance quantum chip, Willow, we have achieved the first-ever demonstration of verifiable quantum advantage. This milestone is a critical step toward realizing useful quantum computation, a feat made possible by the precision and speed engineered into our quantum hardware systems.
Willow: engineering best-in-class performance
Willow, our state-of-the-art quantum chip, is built from superconducting quantum circuits. This field of research began with the groundbreaking discovery of the macroscopic quantum effect in 1985, an achievement that earned John Clarke, Michel Devoret, and John Martinis the status of 2025 Physics Nobel Laureates. Utilizing these circuits, superconducting qubits function as macroscopic “artificial atoms.” Over the past 40 years, driven by the mature integrated circuit fabrication and active research in both academia and industry, these qubits have demonstrated an excellent balance of performance and scalability. This makes them a leading platform for building a fault-tolerant quantum computer.
Building on the foundation of this leading platform, we set out to demonstrate its power in a complex, practical application, to take quantum computing closer to delivering real-world benefits for people. To reveal hidden information about the inner dynamics of quantum systems, such as molecules, we successfully executed the Quantum Echoes algorithm. This algorithm relies on reversing the flow of quantum data in the quantum computers, which in turn places strong demands on Willow’s performance at the system scale. It requires running the Willow chip with a large set of quantum gates and a high volume of quantum measurements — two key elements required to distill useful signals from background noise.
The current-generation Willow chip, benefiting from continuous post-release improvements, delivers best-in-class performance at scale. Across its entire 105-qubit array, it features fidelities of 99.97% for single-qubit gates, 99.88% for entangling gates, and 99.5% for readout, all operating at an unmatched speed of tens to hundreds of nanoseconds.
