Microsoft unveils quantum computing breakthrough

What happened

Microsoft said Wednesday it has developed a computer chip based on a new "topological" state of matter — not solid, liquid or gas — that it expects will underpin exponentially faster and more powerful quantum computers "within years, not decades." The company said its custom-built topological superconductor — topoconductor — can "observe and control Majorana particles" to produce topological quantum bits, or qubits, the building blocks of quantum computing.

Who said what

Microsoft said it created eight topological qubits and placed them on its new Majorana 1 processor, but there was a "clear path" to fitting each chip with a million qubits, the requisite "threshold for quantum computers to deliver transformative, real-world solutions" like self-healing building materials and breaking down microplastics. "All the world's current computers operating together can't do what a one-million-qubit quantum computer will be able to do," the company said.

Scientists have "chased the dream of a quantum computer — a machine that could exploit the strange and exceedingly powerful behavior of subatomic particles or very cold objects — since the 1980s," The New York Times said. Microsoft's quantum technology could "leapfrog" rival methods being developed at Google, which two months ago "unveiled an experimental quantum computer that needed just five minutes to complete a calculation that most supercomputers could not finish in 10 septillion years — longer than the age of the known universe."

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What next?

Quantum computing is "still in its nascent stages," The Wall Street Journal said, but the race is on and "industry experts suggest the first commercially viable quantum computers could begin to appear in the next half decade or so."