Google has launched a quantum computing chip “Willow” which can solve computational problems within minutes, says its Quantum AI team, triggering speculation of a possible crypto encryption crack.

Earlier, computational problems would have taken 10 septillion years to solve by supercomputers but Willow can do it in 5 mins.

Willow processes computations at a mind-boggling speed and corrects errors at an exponentially faster rate, said the Quantum AI team lead Hartmut Neven in a blog post on Sunday, December 9.

“This mind-boggling number exceeds known timescales in physics and vastly exceeds the age of the universe,” said Neven.

He further elaborated how willow lends “ credence to the notion that quantum computation occurs in many parallel universes, in line with the idea that we live in a multiverse, a prediction first made by David Deutsch”.

Willow made Qubits cut down the error rate to half

Neven underlined how Google's Quantum AI team made a major achievement by reducing errors exponentially through qubits or quantum bits, a key challenge in the quantum error correction field that experts have been chasing for 30 years.

“Using our latest advances in quantum error correction, we were able to cut the error rate in half. In other words, we achieved an exponential reduction in the error rate,” said Neven.

“This historic accomplishment is known in the field as “below threshold” — being able to drive errors down while scaling up the number of qubits,” Neven added.

This quantum bit or qubit is an information unit essential for quantum computing as it ensures you have higher computational power. But adding more qubits also increases error risks which in turn makes computation unreliable, giving incorrect results. This makes it difficult to scale it up for large-scale practical use.

But Willow solved that problem by reducing the error rate and Google CEO Sundar Pichai announced it in a post on social media platforms X. Pichai tweeted that Willow is an important step in Google's journey to build a “useful quantum computer” with practical applications in drug discovery, fusion energy and battery design.

In a paper published in Nature, Google published results showing that "the more qubits we use in Willow, the more we reduce errors, and the more quantum the system becomes".

Google engineers cut the error rate in half every time they increased the size of a physical qubit array, from a grid of 3x3 encoded qubits, to 5x5 and then 7x7.

With this technology in place, the tech giant seeks to make a computer capable of complex error-corrected computations. So far Google has hit 2 out of the 6 milestones in its Quantum computing roadmap.

Qubits high enough to break crypto encryptions?

Quantum computing advancements has long been an influential juncture for the crypto industry as these computers can break encryptions and expose user funds to hackers who can access large volumes of digital assets at rapid rates.

According to former Google product manager Kevin Rose Willow isn't that much a threat to crypto as compromising Bitcoin encryption requires at least 13 million qubits in 24 hours which hasn't been achieved yet.

The Willow chip only has 105 qubits.

Kevin Rose explained this in a series of tweet. He tweeted:

“ Q: Can Google's Willow crack Bitcoin?

Estimates indicate that compromising Bitcoin's encryption would necessitate a quantum computer with approximately 13 million qubits to achieve decryption within a 24-hour period.

In contrast, Google's Willow chip, while a significant advancement, comprises 105 qubits. We have a ways to go... Nonetheless, this is a remarkable leap forward in quantum computing. 👏”

However, the CEO of payment platform Lightspark David Marcus warns not to undermine this development saying it is time to get moving “post-quantum cryptography and encryption”.

Meanwhile, Vitalik Buterin, the cofounder of Ethereum already suggested ways of reducing the quantum computing risks for cryptos like ETH. According to his March tweet, a hard fork can subvert the issue.

The way out is blockchain needs to incorporate hard forks, making crypto users download a new wallet software for security. However, he cautioned that a few users might lose funds.

Crypto market in turmoil over quantum apocalypse fear

The news has already caused ripples in the crypto market with the global market cap plummeting by 4.6% to reach $3.46 trillion while the trading volume shot up 100% as traders got worried about the quantum apocalypse.

Twitter reacted with predictions that the crypto market will be washed out of millions because of this new quantum computing development.

Geiger Capital tweeted that Bitcoin is dead, adding, "Fun while it lasted. All of your passwords too."

However, if quantum computers are indeed able to crack encryptions in the near future the crypto industry is likely to move into quantum-safe algorithms.

The GTM of Web3 security firm Blockaid, Glenn Rachlin explained this when he said how Bitcoin uses two types of encryptions. The ECDSA 256 encryption is vulnerable to Shor’s algorithm while others like RSA use large composite numbers into primes. Shor’s algorithm indulges in prime factorisation at a rate higher than classical algorithms which undermines the security of the systems.

"Cracking it would require over 1,000,000 qubits” and “Willow’s 105 isn’t even close”, said Rachlin.

The second encryption SHA-256 is even tougher to crack and requires millions of physical qubits.

"Bitcoin’s cryptography remains SAFU [Secure Asset Fund for Users]... for now," Rachlin added.

Meanwhile, the Founder of Block9 & Elev8 Digital Services, Steven Rupp quoted a Grok answer to dispel the rumors. Rupp stated that Willow “cannot currently crack Bitcoin's hash due to the limitations in qubit count, error correction, and the sheer computational difficulty of the problem. The risk to Bitcoin's cryptography from quantum computing is recognized, but with present technology, it remains a theoretical rather than practical concern."

The crypto world is also advancing its encryption standards as seen in the US Department of Commerce’s National Institute of Standards and Technology finalising three post-quantum encryption standards earlier this year. These are "designed to withstand cyberattacks from a quantum computer". Many crypto security companies are already developing technology to counter this threat.