It has the coldest location in the known cosmos and resembles a golden chandelier. In addition to the world’s most powerful computer, I am examining technology essential to government secrets, financial security, Bitcoin, the global economy, and more. For the remainder of the twenty-first century, quantum computing will determine whether businesses and nations succeed or fail. Willow is hanging a meter in the air in front of me at a Google facility in Santa Barbara, California. To be honest, I didn’t anticipate it.
There are no keyboards or screens, let alone brain-reading chips or holographic head cameras. To keep the quantum microchip a thousandth of a degree above absolute zero, Willow is a series of spherical discs the size of an oil barrel, connected by hundreds of black control wires that drop into a bronze liquid-helium bath cooler.
The metal-and-wire jellyfish structure in front of me looks and feels extremely 80s, but if quantum technology is realized, it will change the world in many ways. Hartmut Neven, Google’s head of Quantum AI, says, “Welcome to our Quantum AI lab,” as we pass past the high security door.
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