Google has announced new research that shows — for the first time in history — that a quantum computer can successfully run a verifiable algorithm on hardware, surpassing even the fastest classical supercomputers – running 13 000-times faster.
It can compute the structure of a molecule, and paves a path towards real-world applications.
The announcement comes on the back of six years of breakthroughs.
In 2019, Google demonstrated that a quantum computer could solve a problem that would take the fastest classical supercomputer thousands of years.
In December 2024, the company debuted the Willow quantum chip, which showed how to dramatically suppress errors, solving a major issue that challenged scientists for nearly 30 years.
The latest breakthrough brings the industry closer to quantum computers that can drive major discoveries in areas like medicine and materials science.
In a corporate blog, Hartmut Neven, founder and lead at Google Quantum AI, and Vadim Smelyanskiy, director: quantum pathfinding at Google Quantum AI, explain that the major algorithmic breakthrough that marks a significant step towards a first real-world application.
Just published in Nature, the team has demonstrated the first-ever verifiable quantum advantage running the out-of-order time correlator (OTOC) algorithm, which it calls Quantum Echoes.
“Quantum Echoes can be useful in learning the structure of systems in nature, from molecules to magnets to black holes, and we’ve demonstrated it runs 13 000 times faster on Willow than the best classical algorithm on one of the world’s fastest supercomputers,” they writes.
In a separate, proof-of-principle experiment Quantum computation of molecular geometry via many-body nuclear spin echoes, the team shows how the new technique — a “molecular ruler” — can measure longer distances than today’s methods, using data from Nuclear Magnetic Resonance (NMR) to gain more information about chemical structure.
“This is the first time in history that any quantum computer has successfully run a verifiable algorithm that surpasses the ability of supercomputers,” Neven and Smelyanskiy write. “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.
“This repeatable, beyond-classical computation is the basis for scalable verification, bringing quantum computers closer to becoming tools for practical applications.
“Our new technique works like a highly advanced echo. We send a carefully crafted signal into our quantum system (qubits on Willow chip), perturb one qubit, then precisely reverse the signal’s evolution to listen for the ‘echo’ that comes back.
“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.”
This implementation of the Quantum Echoes algorithm is enabled by the advances in quantum hardware of Google’s Willow chip.
The Quantum Echoes algorithm represents a new class of challenge because it models a physical experiment, so it tests not only for complexity, but also for precision in the final calculation.
“This is why we call it ‘quantum verifiable’, meaning the result can be cross-benchmarked and verified by another quantum computer of similar quality,” according to the blog authors. “To deliver both precision and complexity, the hardware must have two key traits: extremely low error rates and high-speed operations.”
Quantum computers will be instrumental in modeling quantum mechanical phenomena, such as the interactions of atoms and particles and the structure (or shape) of molecules.