“In other words, we achieved an exponential reduction in the error rate,” said Dr. Hartmut Neven, founder and lead of Google Quantum AI. “This historic accomplishment is known in the field as ‘below threshold’ — being able to drive errors down while scaling up the number of qubits.”

Google captivated the tech world Monday with Willow, a new quantum chip that outperformed even the world’s best supercomputer on an advanced test, and experts say this week’s revelations are just the start of a new phase of cutting-edge computing.

The latest advancements, however, may signal major progress toward building a large-scale quantum computer capable of addressing complex scientific and societal challenges. Unlike