Microsoft Creates New State of Matter to Power Quantum Computers
A Majorana 1 chip. X/ @shank_AI
February 20, 2025 Hour: 8:51 am
A quantum computer could exploit the strange and exceedingly powerful behavior of subatomic particles.
On Wednesday, Microsoft announced that it has created a new state of matter in its quest to make a quantum computer that could accelerate the development of everything from batteries to medicines to artificial intelligence.
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Microsoft’s scientists built what is known as a “topological qubit” based on this new phase of physical existence, which could be harnessed to solve mathematical, scientific and technological problems.
The topoconductor, or topological superconductor, is a special category of material that can create a completely new state of matter, which is not a solid, liquid or gas state, but a topological state. This is exploited to produce a more stable, faster and smaller qubit that can be controlled digitally without the drawbacks required by current alternatives.
“With the development, Microsoft is raising the stakes in what is set to be the next big technological contest, beyond today’s race over artificial intelligence… Microsoft’s quantum technology could leapfrog the methods under development at Google,” reported The New York Times.
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 push heated up in December when Google 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.
As part of its research, the company built multiple topological qubits inside a new kind of computer chip that combines the strengths of the semiconductors that power classical computers with the superconductors that are typically used to build a quantum computer.
A paper published in the journal Nature describes how researchers were able to create the exotic quantum properties of the topological qubit and measure them precisely. This breakthrough required the development of an entirely new material structure made of indium aluminum arsenide, much of which was designed and manufactured atom by atom.
The goal was to create new quantum particles called Majoranas and take advantage of their unique properties. The world’s first topological core powering Majorana 1 is reliable by design, building fault tolerance into the hardware, making it more stable. Microsoft put eight topological qubits on a chip designed to scale to a million.
In the same way that the invention of semiconductors made smartphones, computers, and ultimately all the electronics around us today possible, topoconductors and the new type of chip offer a path to developing quantum systems that can scale to a million qubits. Thanks to this, they will be able to tackle the most complex problems in our world.
The quantum world works according to the laws of quantum mechanics, which are not the same laws of physics that govern the world we see. The particles are called qubits, or quantum bits, analogous to the bits, or ones and zeros, now used by computers and digital devices.
Qubits are sensitive to perturbations and errors in their environment, causing them to decay and lose information. Their state can also be affected by measurement, a central problem for computing.
teleSUR/ JF
Sources: Xinhua – EFE