People were barely getting their heads around the AI revolution, but it appears that a parallel revolution in quantum computing is also taking shape.
Microsoft has said that it has invented a new state of matter — that’s not solid, liquid or gas — which will be used to power quantum computers. “Most of us grew up learning there are three main types of matter that matter: solid, liquid, and gas,” wrote Microsoft CEO Satya Nadella on X. “Today, that changed. After a nearly 20 year pursuit, we’ve created an entirely new state of matter, unlocked by a new class of materials, topoconductors, that enable a fundamental leap in computing,” he added.
“(This state of matter) powers Majorana 1, the first quantum processing unit built on a topological core. We believe this breakthrough will allow us to create a truly meaningful quantum computer not in decades, as some have predicted, but in years. The qubits created with topoconductors are faster, more reliable, and smaller. They are 1/100th of a millimeter, meaning we now have a clear path to a million-qubit processor. Imagine a chip that can fit in the palm of your hand yet is capable of solving problems that even all the computers on Earth today combined could not!” he added.
“We took a step back and said ‘OK, let’s invent the transistor for the quantum age. What properties does it need to have?’” said Chetan Nayak, Microsoft technical fellow. “And that’s really how we got here – it’s the particular combination, the quality and the important details in our new materials stack that have enabled a new kind of qubit and ultimately our entire architecture,” he added.
“Until recently, the exotic particles Microsoft sought to use, called Majoranas, had never been seen or made. They don’t exist in nature and can only be coaxed into existence with magnetic fields and superconductors…The Nature paper marks peer-reviewed confirmation that Microsoft has not only been able to create Majorana particles, which help protect quantum information from random disturbance, but can also reliably measure that information from them using microwaves,” Microsoft said in its blog.
Microsoft’s announcement of creating a new form of matter to help run quantum computers comes months after Google had released its own quantum computer chip named Willow. ““In benchmark tests, Willow solved a standard computation in <5 mins that would take a leading supercomputer over 10^25 years, far beyond the age of the universe(!),” Google CEO Sundar Pichai had then said. And with Microsoft announcing its own chip which it says solves many of the problems associated with traditional quantum computers, it appears that apart from AI, Microsoft and Google seem to be competing in the quantum computing race too.