The company said in a blog post that the new chip "paves the way to a useful, large-scale quantum computer," and Alphabet noted that Willow was made in the company's state-of-the-art fabrication facility in Santa Barbara, California, which is one of only a handful in the world.

Microsoft on Wednesday announced Majorana 1, its first quantum computing chip. The achievement comes after the company has spent nearly two decades of research in the field. Technologists believe quantum computers could one day efficiently solve problems that would be taxing if not impossible for classical computers.

The newly termed “topoconductor,” Majorana 1, is designed to support large qubit data processing for a future quantum computer.