Microsoft has presented the Majorana 1, a quantum computing chip based on a topological core architecture that promises -in the future – support millions of quantum bits In a single chip.
Quantum computing is the next border and – step by step – progress is being made The technology that our world will truly revolutionize The next decades. Microsoft, such as IBM or Google (to name the greats in this technology) continues to progress and have achieved one of the six milestones planned in its road map.
The Redmond firm has taken only 18 months to make the jump from the first to the second milestone, so it claims to be in a position to dissipate any questions about the deadlines to achieve a quantum supercomputer. And it is that the scientists of the Redmond firm predict that The ‘practical’ quantum computers will be available in 2035.
A very ambitious objective considering that there is still a long time to solve the problems inherent to this architecture that, in the face of the traditional “some” and “zeros” architecture stores information in qubits (quantum bits) that can simultaneously adopt both values (superposition) and with it, achieve any computing task exponentially faster than with current systems.
Majorana 1, a new advance
The new chip currently houses only 8 qubits (much less than rivals such as Google Willow), but has the potential to reach up to one million. When Microsoft manages to expand the capacity of the cubits until that amount, it will allow quantum computers to do what classical supercomputer cannot.
“Everything that is done in the quantum space needs to have a path to one million qubits”explains the corporate vice president of quantum hardware of Microsoft, Cetan Nayak, in a statement. «If not, we are going to run into a wall before reaching the scale in which we can solve the really important problems that motivate us. In fact, we have elaborated a road to the million ».
The chip felt in the palm of one hand And it can be installed in quantum computers, according to Microsoft. This development has been possible thanks to the decision to focus on topological qubits, which means that it is built with a material called topological or topoconductor superconductor, which creates a new state of matter that is neither solid, neither liquid nor gaseous.
The size of these topological nuclei such as Majorana 1 are considered ideal since they require less error correction and, therefore, They are more scalable physically than alternative approaches. If the qubits are too small, they can be very difficult to execute control lines on them, and if they are too large, a computer size would be needed.
“Our path to useful quantum computing is clear”explains Nayak. “Fundamental technology is proven and we believe that our architecture is scalable to achieve our goal: to build a machine that can promote scientific discovery and solve important problems”.
