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Microsoft’s new “Majorana 1” processor (pronounced my-or-ana) is the first quantum chip powered by a topological core based on a new class of materials. (Photo by John Brecher for Microsoft)
Microsoft says it has developed a new quantum processor based on a novel state of matter, giving it a clear path to achieve quantum computing’s long-term promise of solving some of the world’s most difficult problems.
“We believe this breakthrough will allow us to create a truly meaningful quantum computer not in decades, as some have predicted, but in years,” wrote Microsoft CEO Satya Nadella in a LinkedIn post about the news.
Microsoft’s approach differs from Google, IBM, and others that have been pouring their efforts into using large numbers of existing quantum processors to overcome errors. Microsoft is instead focused on developing new quantum technologies designed to be more accurate in the first place.
“I think it fundamentally changes the competitive landscape,” said Chirag Dekate, a Gartner analyst who covers quantum computing. While the approach still needs to be proven to work at scale, he said, the advances appear to give Microsoft a deep competitive moat against other key players pursuing quantum breakthroughs.
Just as transistors replaced vacuum tubes in modern computing, Microsoft has created the “transistor for the quantum age” with its latest advances, said Chetan Nayak, a Microsoft technical fellow and corporate vice president of quantum hardware, in an interview with GeekWire.
Chetan Nayak. (Microsoft Photo)
The innovations are the result of a 19-year quantum computing initiative at Microsoft — currently the longest-running research-and-development program inside the company.
“It is a moment we’ve been dreaming about for a long time,” Nayak said.
Microsoft says it sees huge potential for quantum computing in areas such as chemistry, biochemistry and materials science — significantly advancing fields such as healthcare and manufacturing, especially when used to refine and improve artificial intelligence models.
The company also said it has been selected by DARPA, the U.S. Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency, to build a prototype fault-tolerant quantum computer based on its innovations.
If the advances announced Wednesday represent the transistor for the quantum age, Nayak said, this future fault-tolerant quantum computer would be the integrated circuit.
Microsoft describes its scientific breakthrough — enabling the creation of the world’s first “topological” qubit — in a research paper published Wednesday in the journal Nature.
Qubits are the basic unit of information in a quantum computer. Unlike classical binary computers that switch between 1s and 0s, qubits can exist in multiple states simultaneously, thanks to quantum mechanics, unlocking much larger computational capabilities.
A Microsoft graphic shows the key components of its topological qubit. (Microsoft Image, click to enlarge.)
“Topological” refers to the way Microsoft’s new qubit stores information. The approach relies more on the overall design of the material and less on the individual underlying atoms.
Google made headlines in December with the announcement of its own quantum chip, Willow, which uses a large number of an existing type of qubit to reduce errors exponentially. Google and many others in the industry use an approach called Noisy Intermediate-Scale Quantum, or NISQ, that relies on scale to overcome errors.
However, with its new topological qubit, Microsoft is instead looking to make the fundamental components of quantum computing more stable and less prone to errors, resulting in much greater efficiency at larger scale.
The company says it has placed eight topological qubits on a chip — which it calls the “Majorana 1” — that’s designed to ultimately contain 1 million qubits.
“A million-qubit quantum computer isn’t just a milestone — it’s a gateway to solving some of the world’s most difficult problems,” wrote Microsoft’s Nakay in a post Wednesday morning. He explained that “quantum computing at this scale could lead to innovations like self-healing materials that repair cracks in bridges, sustainable agriculture, and safer chemical discovery.”
The key to all this is a new material that causes electrons to form “quasiparticles” that mimic the properties of Majorana (my-or-ana) particles. Majorana particles, originally proposed in 1937 by Italian physicist Ettore Majoran, split an electron into two separate locations. Both locations need to be disturbed simultaneously to change the qubit, reducing the chances of disruption.
This is the key to making a more-stable qubit.
Microsoft first reported in 2022 that its researchers had found evidence of what’s known as a Majorana zero mode, which exists at both ends of a precisely tuned nanowire. Following that discovery, the company announced in 2023 that it could control Majorana quasiparticles.
Key to the latest advances was the creation of topoconductors, a new category of material that is made by combining aluminum with indium arsenide (used in applications like infrared detectors) through a process of extreme cooling. These topoconductors enable a new state of matter — called topological superconductivity — that is neither solid, liquid, nor gas.
At the same time, the company says it has come up with a precise way of reading quantum information from topological qubits, which uses what it calls a “quantum dot,” a tiny capacitor that allows the system to count whether there is an even or odd number of electrons.
Microsoft says the resulting efficiency and stability promise to ultimately enable the scale and accuracy needed to start achieving the promise of quantum computing.
“I think that this discovery actually does speed up that timeline,” Nayak said, when asked to put the news in perspective. “So I don’t think we’re decades away. I think we’re years away.”
