Google has announced its latest quantum computing chip, 'Willow.'

The company claimed that the processor performed a standard benchmark computation in under five minutes, which would otherwise take 10²⁵ years on a conventional supercomputer.

Google said that the new chip has 105 qubits, which can retain an excitation (be useful) for nearly 100 microseconds, five times better than its previous hardware.

The key improvement over prior iterations of Google's system, the company claimed, is that it was able to demonstrate 'below threshold’ quantum calculations. That means that, when Google added more qubits to the quantum computer, error rates dropped "exponentially." In the past, more qubits increased the error rate.

"As the first system below threshold, this is the most convincing prototype for a scalable logical qubit built to date," Hartmut Neven, founder and lead of Google Quantum AI, said.

"It’s a strong sign that useful, very large quantum computers can indeed be built. Willow brings us closer to running practical, commercially-relevant algorithms that can’t be replicated on conventional computers."

Neven added that Willow was also "one of the first compelling examples of real-time error correction on a superconducting quantum system."

This all allowed Willow to hit the random circuit sampling benchmark (a Google-designed benchmark) in five minutes, as compared to 10 septillion years on the 1.35 exaflops Frontier supercomputer.

However, Google previously claimed quantum supremacy in 2019, saying its system managed to pull off a specific workload that would have taken 10,000 years on the Summit supercomputer. This was then proved incorrect when the workload was better optimized for conventional systems.

Neven addressed the incident in his Willow announcement: "Of course, as happened after we announced the first beyond-classical computation in 2019, we expect classical computers to keep improving on this benchmark, but the rapidly growing gap shows that quantum processors are peeling away at a double exponential rate and will continue to vastly outperform classical computers as we scale up."

Google has also yet to cross the threshold of using its quantum systems for something broadly useful with real-world applications rather than a very specific, tailor-made benchmark.

Neven said that Google was "optimistic that the Willow generation of chips can help us achieve this goal."

He added that the company had "done scientifically interesting simulations of quantum systems, which have led to new scientific discoveries but are still within the reach of classical computers."

The chip was built at Google's own fabrication facility in Santa Barbara.