Google builds its own commercial quantum computer, expected to be completed by 2029
At the I/O conference, Google CEO Sundar Pichai announced plans to produce a commercial quantum computer belonging to Google by 2029. Google’s chief engineer of quantum AI, Erik Lucero, also explained in detail in a blog how Google will build its own commercial quantum computer in the next 10 years.
Google executives also showed off the new Quantum AI campus in Santa Barbara, California, U.S. This campus will have Google’s first quantum data center, hardware research laboratory, and Google’s first own quantum processor chip production facility.
The biggest advantage of the Quantum Project lies in the speed, magnitude, and accuracy of data processing so that even complex calculations can be completed faster. Experts predict that quantum computing can promote breakthroughs in multiple fields including medical care, economics, encryption, artificial intelligence, sustainability, and energy.
To build better batteries (to lighten the load on the power grid), or to create fertilizer to feed the world without creating 2% of global carbon emissions (as nitrogen fixation does today), or to create more targeted medicines (to stop the next pandemic before it starts), we need to understand and design molecules better. That means simulating nature accurately. But you can’t simulate molecules very well using classical computers. As you get to even modestly sized molecules, you quickly run out of computing resources. Nature is quantum mechanical: The bonds and interactions among atoms behave probabilistically, with richer dynamics that exhaust the simple classical computing logic.
Google is not the only company on the road to quantum computers. IBM will also install its first commercial quantum computer in Cleveland this year. Therefore, it is still unknown whether Google can catch up with the progress of other companies in commercializing quantum computers.
