Inside the sub-zero lair of the world’s most powerful quantum computer

It looks like a golden chandelier and contains the coldest place in the universe.

What I’m looking at is not only the most powerful computer in the world, but also a technology critical to financial security, Bitcoin, government secrets, the global economy and much more.

Quantum computing holds the key to how businesses and countries will win – and lose – for the rest of the 21st century.

In front of me, suspended at a height of one meter, at Google’s offices in Santa Barbara, California, is Willow. Honestly, it wasn’t what I expected.

There are no screens or keyboards, much less holographic front-facing cameras or brain-reading chips.

Willow is a series of round disks the size of an oil drum connected by hundreds of black control wires running down into a bronze liquid helium bath refrigerator holding the quantum chip a thousandth of a degree above absolute zero.

It looks and feels very 80s, but if the potential of quantum is realized, the metal and wire jellyfish structure in front of me will transform the world, in many ways.

“Welcome to our Quantum AI lab,” says Hartmut Neven, head of Quantum AI at Google, as we walk through the high-security door.

Neven is something of a legendary figure, both a technological genius and a techno music enthusiast, who here dresses like he’s snowboarded straight out of the Burning Man music festival – for which he designs art. Maybe he did, in a parallel universe – more on that later.

Its mission is to transform theoretical physics into working quantum computers “to solve otherwise intractable problems.” He admits he’s biased, but says these chandeliers are the best in the world.

Much of our conversation is about what we are not allowed to film in this restricted laboratory. This critical technology is subject to export controls and secrecy and is at the heart of a race for commercial and economic supremacy. Any small advantage, whether in the form of new components for companies in global supply chains, is a source of potential leverage.

There is a notable Californian atmosphere in this temple of high science, in its art and its colors. Each quantum computer has a name such as Yakushima or Mendocino, they are each wrapped in a contemporary artwork, and various graffiti-style murals adorn the walls illuminated by the bright winter sun.

Neven introduces Willow, Google’s latest quantum chip, which has reached two important milestones. He said this settles “once and for all” the debate over the ability of quantum computers to perform tasks that classical computers cannot.

Willow also solved in minutes a benchmark problem that would have taken the world’s best computer 10 seven billion years, or more than a trillion billion, or a problem with 25 zeros at the end, more than the age of the universe.

This theoretical result was recently applied to the Quantum Echoes algorithm, impossible for conventional computers, which can learn the structure of molecules using the same technology used in MRI machines.

Neven explains how he believes this Willow quantum chip will be used “to solve many of the problems humanity is currently facing.”

“This will allow us to discover drugs more efficiently,” he says. “It will help us make food production more efficient, it will help us produce energy, transport energy, store energy…solve climate change and human hunger.”

“It allows us to better understand nature, and then unlock its secrets to create technologies that make life better for all of us,” he tells me.

Some researchers believe that true artificial intelligence will only truly be possible with quantum.

The team members have just received the Nobel Prize for their original research on the “superconducting qubits” used here.

The Willow chip has 105 qubits. Microsoft’s quantum effort features 8 qubitsbut uses a different approach. The race around the world is to reach 1 million qubits for a “utility-scale machine” capable of error-free quantum chemistry and drug design. Technology is fragile.

What happens here is closely watched around the world. Professor Sir Peter Knight, chair of the National Advisory Council on Quantum Technology Program Strategy, says Willow has broken new ground.

“All machines are still at the stage of toy models, they make mistakes. They need error correction. Willow was the first to demonstrate that it was possible to correct errors, through repeated rounds of repairs, which improve,” he says.

This puts the technology on a path toward accurately performing a trillion operations, perhaps within seven or eight years, rather than the two decades previously assumed.

If the first quarter of this century was defined by the rise of the Internet and then Artificial Intelligence, the next 25 years will surely be the beginning of the quantum era.

Imagine trying to find a tennis ball in one of thousands of closed drawers. A typical computer opens each of them in order. A quantum computer opens them all at once. Similarly, instead of needing a hundred keys to open a hundred doors in normal computing, quantum allows you to open all hundred, with a single key, instantly.

These machines will not be suitable for everyone. They won’t turn into phones, AI glasses, or laptops. But the fact is that the power of these computers is increasing exponentially and everyone is getting involved.

I asked Nvidia chief Jensen Huang whether this poses a threat to its model of supplying specialized chips for AI. “No, a quantum processor will be added to a computer in the future,” he replied.

And one of Britain’s leaders in the field highlights what’s to be gained in the quantum world: the possible power to decrypt almost everything, from state secrets to Bitcoin.

“All cryptocurrencies will also need to be reviewed due to the quantum computing threat,” says Sir Peter.

Last year, a major Nvidia partner said that while Bitcoin still had a few years left, the technology was expected to evolve into a more robust blockchain by the end of the decade.

Tech industry sources refer to the “Harvest Now, Decrypt Later” process to describe how state agencies are supposed to safeguard all of the world’s encrypted data, at home and abroad, in the hopes that future generations can access it.

And then there is the race around the world. China’s approach is very different from the trade race in the United States and the West.

At around $15 billion (£11 billion), the total resources devoted to quantum technology in China are probably on the order of all other government programs in the world combined, says Sir Peter.

Since 2022, China has published more scientific papers on quantum than other countries, and these efforts have been led by a pioneering physicist called Pan Jianwei. It is a key part of Beijing’s 14th Five-Year Plan.

China has moved to block its technology companies such as Baidu and Alibaba from developing their own quantum research – and to concentrate people and infrastructure in a state-owned company. China is trying to gain an advantage in quantum communications and satellites.

Last year, Pan developed and tested the Zuchongzhi 3.0 quantum computer using similar technology but a different approach to Willow, claiming similar results. In the fall it was opened for commercial use. This all sounds a bit like the Manhattan Project of World War II to produce the first nuclear weapons, or the space race of the 21st century.

The United Kingdom is one of the scientific centers of quantum research. It was a British scientist who carried out the first research on superconducting qubits. There are dozens of companies and cutting-edge research here. The government plans to make a significant investment in this area in the coming weeks. It is vital for the economy, for military use and for geopolitics. It is hoped that the United Kingdom will become the third power in this area.

Back at the Willow lab, perhaps even more existential questions arise. Last year, Neven suggested that Willow’s unprecedented speed supported some conceptions of the existence of a multiverse. Basically, this speed could be explained by Willow mining parallel universes for her computing power. Not all scientists believed in this idea.

“There’s still a lively debate,” he told me. “As you learned during your lab visit, the reason quantum computers are so powerful is that in one clock cycle they can touch two to 105 combinations simultaneously. It makes you wonder where are these different things?…There is a version of quantum mechanics to think about – the many worlds formulation – parallel universes or parallel reality.”

Willow hadn’t proven that, Neven was careful to say, but was “suggesting that we should take this idea seriously.”

We are at the forefront of the world’s frontier, of technology, of growth, and the British government will soon spend hundreds of millions to catch up with Willow and the Chinese. It sounds like science fiction. This is quickly becoming an economic reality.