Microsoft researchers have announced that they have created a new state of matter to manufacture a chip that could serve as the foundation for an unprecedentedly powerful quantum computer. The breakthrough was outlined by Microsoft researchers in a paper published in the prestigious scientific journal “Nature”.
The chip developed by Microsoft utilizes a type of material known as a topological superconductor (TSC), which is a material that is neither a solid, liquid, nor gas. This chip is designed to be the building block for a scalable and powerful quantum computer. The chip, named “Majorana 1”, is currently only a research achievement and is not yet available for sale. However, the potential applications of quantum computers, such as discovering new drugs, protecting digital systems, and encrypting data, are expected to showcase the prowess of quantum computing.
Quantum computers operate using a different method of computing numbers compared to traditional computers, and the speed of certain calculations can be several orders of magnitude faster. However, quantum computing is still in its early stages, with only a few extremely powerful quantum computers currently in existence.
Industry experts predict that the first commercially viable quantum computer may start to emerge in the next fifty years.
Microsoft has stated that they are expanding the development of their chip to accommodate one million quantum bits, also known as “Qubits,” however, the timeline for achieving this milestone has not been disclosed.
While it is still unclear how significant a role it will play in the development of more powerful quantum computers, Microsoft, along with tech industry competitors such as IBM and Google, are investing heavily in creating practical quantum systems.
Google announced a breakthrough in quantum computing in December last year, introducing a chip named Willow. The Willow chip features 105 quantum bits and can solve problems that would take a classical supercomputer 10^25 years to solve in just 5 minutes. It also allows quantum computers to increase the number of quantum bits without increasing the error rate but rather reducing it, thanks to the logic qubits inside the Willow chip that can instantly correct errors.
While traditional computers process information by combining 1s and 0s and computing based on the arrangement of these digits, quantum computers operate using “quantum bits,” which can be any number between 0 and 1 and can quickly calculate all possible answers. In terms of computation speed, quantum computers can be billions of times more powerful than current supercomputers.
Current challenges facing quantum computers include their large physical size, inaccuracies in computation, lower stability compared to traditional computers, the enormous energy consumption required for operation, and their sensitivity to environmental factors, making them prone to interference from cosmic events or other particles.
(This article referenced reporting from The Wall Street Journal)