Google has made a fresh announcement regarding quantum computing, reigniting fears about the future security of crypto assets like Bitcoin and Ethereum.
CEO Sundar Pichai revealed that Google's Quantum AI team has made a breakthrough in what's called “magic state cultivation” on their Willow quantum computer.
The findings, which were published in the scientific journal Science, revealed that they reduced errors by a factor of 40 compared to preparing quantum states without the new method.
Also, they've achieved a record logical fidelity of 99.99% for specialized quantum states called T-states.
Google has stated that this breakthrough is a major step towards creating high-power, error-corrected quantum computers that can do things that are impossible with today's computers.
This breakthrough solves one of the major problems in quantum computing, which is the huge amount of resources needed to create reliable quantum states.
What does this mean for crypto？
This news reignites concerns about how quantum computing may be a threat to the security of blockchain.
Many major cryptocurrencies like Bitcoin and Ethereum use elliptic curve cryptography to secure transactions and verify digital signatures.
If a powerful enough quantum computer were created, theoretically it could break these cryptographic measures.
This new breakthrough from Google doesn't mean current cryptocurrencies are in trouble right now.
The tech giant has not yet demonstrated this method at a scale that would be required for real practical use in large-scale quantum computing.
That said, the developmnent makes it much easier to complete one of the toughest steps in creating a quantum computer capable of breaking cryptocurrency.
They've made one of the toughest steps much easier to accomplish when creating a quantum computer that could break crypto.