Willow: Sundar Pichai, Elon Musk discuss quantum clusters, space on X

The unveiling of Willow by Google chief Sundar Pichai began a futuristic interaction between him and Musk who expressed their desire to create a quantum cluster in space with Starship.

The conversation between two tech leaders is now viral over the Internet.

It all began when Pichai wrote on X introducing Willow: "Introducing Willow, our new state-of-the-art quantum computing chip with a breakthrough that can reduce errors exponentially as we scale up using more qubits, cracking a 30-year challenge in the field. In benchmark tests, Willow solved a standard computation in <5 mins that would take a leading supercomputer over 10^25 years, far beyond the age of the universe(!)."

"We see Willow as an important step in our journey to build a useful quantum computer with practical applications in areas like drug discovery, fusion energy, battery design + more," he said.

Pichai's X post could not miss Elon Musk's attention who welcomed the new quantum chip with his comment on his platform: "Wow."

It is at this point that Pichai revealed a possible futuristic collaboration between the two tech geeks when he said: "We should do a quantum cluster in space with Starship one day:)."

Musk was quick in replying: "That will probably happen. Any self-respecting civilization should at least reach Kardashev Type II. In my opinion, we are currently only at <5% of Type I. To get to ~30%, we would need to place solar panels in all desert or highly arid regions."

Pichai said: "We should scale solar so much more, amazing that we keep looking at alternatives when the most obvious path is staring at our eyes, literally!"

Popular search engine Google on Monday said it has made a significant advancement in quantum computing with its new chip that has the potential to solve complex mathematical problems in just five minutes which classical computers would take a significantly longer time than recorded in the history of the universe to find a solution.

The chip is named Willow.

In a Google Blog post, the company said: "The first is that Willow can reduce errors exponentially as we scale up using more qubits. This cracks a key challenge in quantum error correction that the field has pursued for almost 30 years."