Google Says It Just Cracked One of Quantum Computing's Biggest Bottlenecks

Google says it has turned one of quantum computing's most promising paper tricks into something that actually works on a chip. In a paper published in Science on Thursday, the company's Quantum AI team showed that a technique called magic state cultivation cut errors by about 40 times on its Willow processor. Making quantum computers cheaper to build matters far beyond physics labs, because it brings forward the day they do useful work, like designing drugs and new materials, and also the day one could break the encryption that protects bank logins and Bitcoin wallets.