Hartmut Neven, founder and lead at Google Quantum AI, said in an announcement on Monday that the chip offers “state-of-the-art performance across a number of metrics”.
He said the chip enabled two achievements, one of which that the chip “can reduce errors exponentially as we scale up using more qubits”, which refers to a basic unit of information in quantum computing.
“This cracks a key challenge in quantum error correction that the field has pursued for almost 30 years,” said Neven.
“Second, Willow performed a standard benchmark computation in under five minutes that would take one of today’s fastest supercomputers 10 septillion (that is, 1025) years — a number that vastly exceeds the age of the universe,” he added.
Neven said that the Willow chip represented a “major step” in the company’s journey in this space.
Investment bank Morgan Stanley (MS) raised its price target on Tesla to $400 (£314.32) from $310 and maintained an “overweight” rating on the stock.
The firm also reaffirmed its top-pick status for the electric vehicle (EV) manufacturer.
Analyst Adam Jonas suggests that the potential Trump-era backlash against electric vehicles will be short-lived, as the US aims to maintain its leadership in autonomous driving technology.
Meanwhile, data from Tesla China showed that the carmaker had sold 21,900 EVs in China in the first week of December, which was the highest weekly sales in the fourth quarter this year, Reuters reported.
Tesla has reportedly sold 556,000 units of its Model Y car in China over the past year, which was said to be its best-selling passenger vehicle.
Shares in Tesla closed Tuesday’s session nearly 3% in the green but were little changed in pre-market trading on Wednesday morning.
The stock has been on the rise more recently as Tesla CEO Elon Musk prepares to assume an advisory role in president-elect Donald Trump’s incoming administration, having been appointed to co-lead the extra-governmental Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE).
Shares in US pharmacy group Walgreens soared nearly 18% on Tuesday, following a report that private-equity firm Sycamore Partners in is talks to buy the company.
The Wall Street Journal reported that the deal would take Walgreens off the public market after a turbulent run for the company, with a decline shares having seen its market value shrink from a peak of more than $100bn to less than $8bn.
Separately, Sky News reported that the deal could trigger a fresh auction of UK chain Boots, which is part of the larger Walgreens Boots Alliance business.
Walgreens has been struggling in the US as it faces pressure from the growth of online prescription delivery platforms and ongoing retail constraints.
In October, Walgreens announced that it would close 500 stores towards the end of next year and reach a total of 1,200 store closings in the next three years in the US.
Lucky Strike-owner British American Tobacco (BAT) said it was on track to deliver 2024 guidance, in a full-year pre-close trading update released on Wednesday.
BAT said it was seeing an acceleration in performance in the second-half of the year, driven by the phasing of innovations in its new category business, which includes vapes.
The trading update gave a glimpse into what’s expected in the actual full-year results, which are set to be released in February.
BAT said it was expecting to deliver low-single figure growth in organic revenue and adjusted profit from operations.
Dan Coatsworth, investment analyst at AJ Bell (AJB.L), said: “Even though tobacco industry sales are slowly declining, it’s only by a small amount and next-generation products such as vaping are filling the gap.
“Admittedly, growth rates for next generation products haven’t been as strong as some companies would have liked, yet the transition from old to new continues to make progress.”
Shares in BAT were up less than 1% on Wednesday morning.
Shares in TUI had slipped 3% into the red on Wednesday morning, after the travel operator’s pace of growth looked to slow in the next year.
TUI said its full-year revenue had grown 12% to €23.2bn (£19.1bn) compared with the previous year, while earnings before interest and tax had risen 33% to €1.3bn.
For its 2025 fiscal year, TUI guided to a 5% to 10% increase in revenue and a 7% to 10% increase in underlying earnings before interest and tax.
Coatsworth said: “The outlook remains bullish, albeit with guidance for a lower rate of sales and earnings growth. It’s not that people don’t want to go on holiday, it’s more about affordability and TUI needs to uphold its reputation for offering people good value for money.
“TUI needs to invest in its business to keep it fresh and relevant to holidaymakers and there is an argument to say it is still playing catch-up in this area versus rivals.”
