It looks like a golden chandelier and contains the coldest place in the universe. What I am looking at is not just the most powerful computer in the world, but technology pivotal to financial security, Bitcoin, government secrets, the world economy and more. Quantum computing holds the key to which companies and countries win - and lose - the rest of the 21st Century.
In front of me suspended a metre in the air, in a Google facility in Santa Barbara California, is Willow. Frankly, it was not what I expected.
There are no screens or keyboards, let alone holographic head cams or brain-reading chips. Willow is an oil barrel-sized series of round discs connected by hundreds of black control wires descending into a bronze liquid helium bath refrigerator keeping the Quantum microchip a thousandth of a degree above absolute zero.
It looks, and feels, very eighties, but if quantum's potential is realised, the metal and wire jellyfish structure in front of me will transform the world, in many ways.
Welcome to our Quantum AI lab, says Hartmut Neven, Google's Quantum chief, as we go through the high security door. Neven is something of a legendary figure, part technological genius, part techno music enthusiast, who dresses like he has snowboarded here straight from the Burning Man music festival – for which he designs art. Perhaps he has, in a parallel universe - more on that later.
His mission is to turn theoretical physics into functional quantum computers to solve otherwise unsolvable problems and he admits he's biased but says these chandeliers are the best performing in the world.
Much of our conversation is about what we are not allowed to film in this restricted lab. This critical technology is subject to export controls, secrecy and is at the heart of a race for commercial and economic supremacy.
There is a notable Californian vibe in this temple of high science, in its art and colour. Each quantum computer is given a name such as Yakushima or Mendocino, they are each wrapped in a piece of contemporary art, and various graffiti style murals adorn the walls illuminated by the bright winter sun.
Neven holds up Willow, Google's latest Quantum chip, which has delivered two important milestones.
It will enable us to discover medicines more efficiently, he says. It will help us make food production more efficient, it will help us produce energy, to transport energy, to store energy...solve climate change and human hunger...
Willow also solved a benchmark problem in minutes that would have taken the best computer in the world 10 septillion years, so more than a trillion trillion, or one with 25 zeros on the end, more than the age of the universe.
As Neven explains, the technology is evolving rapidly, and the competition is fierce, with countries around the world racing to unlock the potential of quantum computing, a landscape filled with both promise and uncertainty.
In front of me suspended a metre in the air, in a Google facility in Santa Barbara California, is Willow. Frankly, it was not what I expected.
There are no screens or keyboards, let alone holographic head cams or brain-reading chips. Willow is an oil barrel-sized series of round discs connected by hundreds of black control wires descending into a bronze liquid helium bath refrigerator keeping the Quantum microchip a thousandth of a degree above absolute zero.
It looks, and feels, very eighties, but if quantum's potential is realised, the metal and wire jellyfish structure in front of me will transform the world, in many ways.
Welcome to our Quantum AI lab, says Hartmut Neven, Google's Quantum chief, as we go through the high security door. Neven is something of a legendary figure, part technological genius, part techno music enthusiast, who dresses like he has snowboarded here straight from the Burning Man music festival – for which he designs art. Perhaps he has, in a parallel universe - more on that later.
His mission is to turn theoretical physics into functional quantum computers to solve otherwise unsolvable problems and he admits he's biased but says these chandeliers are the best performing in the world.
Much of our conversation is about what we are not allowed to film in this restricted lab. This critical technology is subject to export controls, secrecy and is at the heart of a race for commercial and economic supremacy.
There is a notable Californian vibe in this temple of high science, in its art and colour. Each quantum computer is given a name such as Yakushima or Mendocino, they are each wrapped in a piece of contemporary art, and various graffiti style murals adorn the walls illuminated by the bright winter sun.
Neven holds up Willow, Google's latest Quantum chip, which has delivered two important milestones.
It will enable us to discover medicines more efficiently, he says. It will help us make food production more efficient, it will help us produce energy, to transport energy, to store energy...solve climate change and human hunger...
Willow also solved a benchmark problem in minutes that would have taken the best computer in the world 10 septillion years, so more than a trillion trillion, or one with 25 zeros on the end, more than the age of the universe.
As Neven explains, the technology is evolving rapidly, and the competition is fierce, with countries around the world racing to unlock the potential of quantum computing, a landscape filled with both promise and uncertainty.
