Scandinavians in the Team Behind Willow
This week, Google unveiled its newest quantum chip, Willow, at its Quantum AI Lab in Santa Barbara. Willow represents a breakthrough in quantum computing, and three Scandinavian researchers are part of the team behind it.
In a paper published in the journal Nature on Monday, Google said it has found a way to connect the chip's qubits so that error rates decrease as the number of qubits increases. The company also says it can correct errors in real-time, a key step toward running practical, commercially relevant algorithms that cannot be replicated on conventional computers.
"We are past the break-even point," Hartmut Neven, who leads the Google Quantum AI unit, said in an interview with Reuters.
In benchmark tests, Willow completed a computation in under five minutes, which Google estimates would take the fastest classical supercomputers more than a billion years to solve under ideal conditions.
The chip, developed at Google’s Quantum AI Lab in Santa Barbara—established in 2021—is supported by advanced facilities for fabricating and testing quantum processors.
Three Scandinavian researchers were part of the team, and they were acknowledged in the Nature publication. This reflects the collaborative effort driving advancements in quantum computing.
Kristoffer Ottosson, a senior hardware engineer at Google since September 2023, specializes in quantum computing and quantum error correction.
Trond I. Andersen, a research scientist at Google Quantum AI, focuses on quantum computing and condensed matter physics. His work includes hybrid analog-digital quantum simulations, quantum gate optimization, and studies of non-equilibrium phenomena.
Andreas Bengtsson, a staff research scientist at Google Quantum AI, specializes in superconducting qubits and quantum information processing. His work includes advancements in error suppression for surface code logical qubits and optimizing qubit readout for improved measurement accuracy.
Google fabricated its earlier chips in a shared facility at the University of California, Santa Barbara, but built its own dedicated fabrication facility to produce the Willow chips.