Stuart Clarkson

Thank you.

Leaders from some of the world's most prominent central banks have backed Federal Reserve Chair Jerome Powell as he faces a criminal investigation.

The heads of 10 institutions, including Christine Lagarde from the European Central Bank and Andrew Bailey from the Bank of England, said maintaining independence of central banks is critical for price, financial and economic stability and that Powell has worked with integrity and focus on his mandate at the Fed.

Let's do the numbers now.

Japan's Nikkei closed up 3.1% to a record high, with speculation in Tokyo of a snap election coming.

And shares on the markets in Seoul ended the day 1.5% higher after South Korean tech firm SK Hynix announced a $13 billion plan to build an advanced chip packaging plant.

Now, AI has been top of the headlines in recent years, but there's another global race between the world's biggest companies and countries to build the most powerful computers ever seen.

Quantum computing using principles of particle physics creates machines that can solve problems that ordinary computers can't.

The BBC's Faisal Islam's been to Google in California to find out more.

Faisal, as I'm reporting from California, our producer is Neil Morrow.

Our editor is Naomi Rainey.

In the UK, I'm Stuart Clarkson with the Marketplace Morning Report from the BBC World Service.