Google has announced a major advancement in quantum computing that researchers say marks a decisive shift toward practical quantum applications, with its Willow quantum chip and novel Quantum Echoes algorithm achieving a “verifiable quantum advantage” that outpaces classical supercomputers by orders of magnitude. The development has been described in the research community as something akin to “God mode” in computing, i.e., capable of performing complex, verifiable calculations that classical hardware cannot efficiently reproduce.
In a paper published in Nature and in related research blogs, Google Quantum AI leaders Hartmut Neven and Vadim Smelyanskiy detailed how the Quantum Echoes algorithm was used to probe the quantum system. It was achieved in ways that yielded consistent, reproducible results that can be verified on another quantum device or through independent simulation.
“Our Willow quantum chip demonstrates the first-ever algorithm to achieve verifiable quantum advantage on hardware,” the team said in their official blog. “This demonstration of the first-ever verifiable quantum advantage with our Quantum Echoes algorithm marks a significant step toward the first real-world applications of quantum computing.
“As we scale up towards a full-scale, error-corrected quantum computer, we expect many more such useful real-world applications to be invented. Now, we’re focused on achieving Milestone 3 on our quantum hardware roadmap, a long-lived logical qubit.”
The Willow processor, a 105-qubit superconducting quantum chip developed by Google Quantum AI, executed the Quantum Echoes algorithm at a speed reportedly 13,000 times faster than the best available classical supercomputers for the same task.
The Quantum Echoes algorithm works by running operations forward on the quantum system, introducing a perturbation to a qubit, and then reversing the sequence to capture how information evolves and interacts within the system. similar to a quantum “echo” that reveals underlying structure and dynamics that classical hardware would struggle to simulate.
Unlike Google’s Sycamore processor in 2019 that solved abstract sampling problems, this latest achievement centers on computation that is both verifiable and directly relevant to real scientific challenges. Verification is critical, Google researchers argue, because it ensures that results are consistent and reproducible, a major hurdle in quantum computation where noise and error rates have traditionally clouded confidence in output.
As the official blog put it:
This is the first time in history that any quantum computer has successfully run a verifiable algorithm that surpasses the ability of supercomputers. 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.
The achievement also contributes to a broader competitive landscape in quantum technology, where companies like IBM, Microsoft, and emerging startups are racing to refine error-corrected quantum processors and scalable architectures. As quantum computing continues to evolve, Willow’s milestone may prove to be a defining moment in the field’s transition from theoretical promise to tangible scientific utility.