Media caption, Inside the secretive lab which stores the world's most powerful computerByFaisal Islam Economics editorPublished8 January 2026 It looks like a golden chandelier and contains the coldest place in the known 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.
Published: January 8, 2026 12:04 am
Source: BBC — Read original