Quantum scientists at Google made quite a splash this week with reports that described how its new chip, Willow, made a breakthrough in problem-solving that sent parent Alphabet’s stock soaring.
Largely overlooked was the fact that Willow was designed and built at Google’s quantum foundry, located near the UC Santa Barbara campus off Hollister Avenue.
The foundry serves as a hub for Google’s Quantum AI team, which also has a large presence in the Bay Area.
The press conference announcing the Willow breakthrough was held in Mountain View.
The breakthrough is significant because it is a step toward the commercialization of quantum’s massive problem-solving potential.
And it is significant to the Central Coast because it could emerge as a commercial hub for quantum computing later in the century — perhaps by 2030.
Google Quantum AI founder Hartmut Neven alluded to coming developments in widely quoted comments.
“One thing to notice is that we are pretty much tracking it (quantum) as we had laid it out” in 2020, he said adding that the “large milestone six machine will appear somewhere around the end of the decade.”
How fast is the Willow chip?
According to Google, it is fast enough to solve a problem in minutes that would take the benchmark Frontier computer 10 to the power of 25 minutes — or longer than the universe has been around — to solve.
Neven told Bloomberg News that Google expects to start working on real-world problems as early as next year.
The prospect of solving complex problems such as weather prediction or building new materials that have eluded classical computers is one reason why tech companies, governments and investors have placed large bets on the future of Quantum computers.
Quantum computing under development at Google’s lab in Goleta (source: Google)
[Note: to learn more about Google’s quantum lab in Goleta, visit https://quantumai.google/learn/lab.]
UC Santa Barbara’s quantum foundry is the recipient of a major National Science Foundation grant.
When it comes to commercialization, the Central Coast has a history of success — and some near misses too.
The infrared sensor technology developed by UCSB Professor Bill Parrish and others became the basis for a series of enterprises that now include the RTX (formerly Raytheon) and the Teledyne/FLIR operation in Goleta. Headquartered in Thousand Oaks, Teledyne is perhaps the best example of how UC Santa Barbara spinouts have enriched the region’s economy.
The OLED technology for display screens for cell phones and televisions pioneered by UCSB Professor Alan Heeger, a Nobel Laureate, spawned companies that became part of DuPont.
As I learned when we hosted Heeger at our Central Coast Innovation Awards a couple of years ago, the same OLED technology is powering NEXT Energy, whose electricity-generating windows have been installed at the Patagonia headquarters in Ventura.
LED or solid-state lighting companies spun out from Nobel Laureate Shuji Nakamura and his UCSB colleague Steven DenBaars have found a foothold on the Central Coast.
One thing that has changed in the past couple of decades is that the Central Coast has a bigger pool of talent and a better ecosystem to support commercialization.
There are more venture capitalists watching developments at the UCSB quantum lab the Institute for Energy Efficiency and other labs. UCSB’s strong culture of interdisciplinary collaboration is part of the reason why it continues to serve as an innovation factory, albeit one that doesn’t always get the headlines it deserves.
And the ability to build virtual companies means that a few hundred or even a few dozen scientists and administrative staff can operate a large enterprise from the Central Coast, where housing remains out of reach for many professionals.
Still, if the choice is between the Bay Area and the Highway 101 corridor, a lot of people would find it an easy decision — and hop on a plane to SFO, San Jose or Oakland when the need arises.
Henry Dubroff is the founder, owner and editor of the Pacific Coast Business Times.