Chris Vallance
Senior technology journalist
Microsoft
Microsoft has unveiled a new chip called Majorana 1 which, according to him, will allow the creation of quantum computers capable of solving “significant problems and on an industrial scale in years, not decades”.
This is the latest development of quantum IT – Tech which uses the principles of particle physics to create a new type of computer capable of solving the problems that ordinary computers cannot.
The creation of quantum computers sufficiently powerful to solve significant problems in the real world is very difficult – and some experts think they are in decades.
Microsoft says that this calendar can now be accelerated due to the “transformers” progress it has made in the development of the new chip involving a “topological driver”, based on a new material he has produced.
The company believes that its topoconductor has the potential to be as revolutionary as the semiconductor in the history of computer science.
But the experts told the BBC more data necessary before the importance of the new research – and its effect on quantum computer – can be fully assessed.
Jensen Huang – The boss of the main flea business, Nvidia – said in January that he thought that quantum computer “very useful” would take place in 20 years.
Chetan Nayak, a technical member of quantum material in Microsoft, said that he thought that developments would shake up conventional reflection on the future of quantum computers.
“Many people have said that quantum computer science, that is, useful quantum computers, are decades,” he said. “I think it brings us to years rather than decades.”
Travis Humble, director of the National Laboratory Laboratory Laboratory in the United States, said that he had agreed that Microsoft would now be able to deliver prototypes – but warned that there was work to do.
“The long-term objectives to resolve industrial applications on quantum computers will require an increase in these prototypes even more,” he said.
What is quantum computers?
Companies around the world run to make a new revolutionary computers generation.
Quantum IT is the promise of carrying out calculations that would take systems of today millions of years and could unlock discoveries in medicine, chemistry and many other fields.
There are many important problems that “conventional” computers, of the type we use every day in our phones, and laptops and the power of the most modern applications, cannot solve.
But these are problems that quantum machines could be able to crack quickly, promising new discoveries by creating new drugs or designing better batteries.
A multitude of technological companies, including the Giants of Silicon Valley, are currently engaged in a race of several billion dollars to develop a quantum computer powerful enough to solve these problems.
Microsoft addresses the problem differently from most of its rivals.
Its path to the construction of a quantum computer was based on the possibility of creating a “topological driver” or topological.
He uses newly developed equipment to create a new state of matter – a “topological state” which is not a gas, liquid or solid and, until recently, only existed theory.
More specifically, it is based on so -called Majorana particles, which were themselves considered to be theoretical – works claiming that they had been discovered in 2018 should be retracted.
High risk, high reward?
While Rivals produced a constant flow of ads – including Google’s “Willow” at the end of 2024 – Microsoft seemed to take more time.
According to the company’s own words, a “high risk and high reward” strategy, but the one that, according to her, will now bear fruit.
“In the same way that the invention of semiconductors has made possible smartphones, computers and electronics today, topoconductors and the new type of chip they allow a path to develop a system quantum, “said Microsoft.
The largest challenge for quantum computers concerns their fundamental construction element, called qubit, which is incredibly fast but also extremely difficult to control and subject to errors.
The more a chip has qubits, the more it is capable.
Microsoft says he put eight of his new topological qubits on his new chip – considerably less than the chips created by some of his competitors.
However, he claims to have a path to scale it up to a million qubits – which would create immense computing power.
Professor Paul Stevenson at Surrey University said that the research published by Microsoft was an “important step”, but he thought it had difficult challenges to come.
“Until the next steps are reached, it is too early to be more than prudently optimistic,” he said.
Chris Huenun, professor of quantum programming at the University of Edinburgh, told the BBC that he thought that Microsoft’s plans were “credible”.
“These are promising progress after more than a decade of challenges, and the next few years will see if this exciting roadmap takes place,” he said.
