The Willow quantum computerGoogle Quantum AI Making quantum computers error-proof is one of the biggest challenges currently facing the technology. Researchers at Google Quantum AI have now demonstrated one way to do so more efficiently. Their work suggests the smaller quantum computers that will be available in the next few years could be more impactful than expected. Quantum computers can run mathematical operations, analogous to addition or multiplication, that conventional computers cannot. This makes them suitable for solving some problems that had previously been considered unsolvable, such as those that underpin cryptography. Most important among the quantum operations the computers r...