Microsoft announced its latest breakthrough, Majorana 1, the world’s first quantum chip powered by a new Topological Core architecture. The company expects it will realize quantum computers capable of solving meaningful, industrial-scale problems in years, not decades.
It leverages the world’s first topoconductor, a breakthrough type of material which can observe and control Majorana particles to produce more reliable and scalable qubits, which are the building blocks for quantum computers.
In the same way that the invention of semiconductors made today’s smartphones, computers and electronics possible, topoconductors and the new type of chip they enable offer a path to developing quantum systems that can scale to a million qubits and can tackle the most complex industrial and societal problems, Microsoft said.
The new architecture used to develop the Majorana 1 processor offers a clear path to fit a million qubits on a single chip that can fit in the palm of one’s hand, Microsoft said.
This is a needed threshold for quantum computers to deliver transformative, real-world solutions—such as breaking down microplastics into harmless byproducts or inventing self-healing materials for construction, manufacturing, or healthcare.
The topoconductor, or topological superconductor, is a special category of material that can create an entirely new state of matter—not a solid, liquid, or gas but a topological state. This is harnessed to produce a more stable qubit that is fast, small and can be digitally controlled, without the tradeoffs required by current alternatives.
This breakthrough required developing an entirely new materials stack made of indium arsenide and aluminum, much of which Microsoft designed and fabricated atom by atom. The goal was to coax new quantum particles called Majoranas into existence and take advantage of their unique properties to reach the next horizon of quantum computing, Microsoft said.
This progress validates Microsoft’s choice years ago to pursue a topological qubit design – a high risk, high reward scientific and engineering challenge that is now paying off. Today, the company has placed eight topological qubits on a chip designed to scale to one million.
“From the start we wanted to make a quantum computer for commercial impact, not just thought leadership,” said Matthias Troyer, Microsoft technical fellow. “We knew we needed a new qubit. We knew we had to scale.”
That approach led the Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency (DARPA), a federal agency that invests in breakthrough technologies that are important to national security, to include Microsoft in a rigorous program to evaluate whether innovative quantum computing technologies could build commercially relevant quantum systems faster than conventionally believed possible.
Microsoft is now one of two companies to be invited to move to the final phase of DARPA’s Underexplored Systems for Utility-Scale Quantum Computing (US2QC) program—one of the programs that makes up DARPA’s larger Quantum Benchmarking Initiative—which aims to deliver the industry’s first utility-scale fault-tolerant quantum computer, or one whose computational value exceeds its costs.
In addition to making its own quantum hardware, Microsoft has partnered with Quantinuum and Atom Computing to reach scientific and engineering breakthroughs with today’s qubits, including the announcement last year of the industry’s first reliable quantum computer.
These types of machines offer important opportunities to develop quantum skills, build hybrid applications, and drive new discoveries, particularly as AI is combined with new quantum systems that will be powered by larger numbers of reliable qubits.
Azure Quantum offers a suite of integrated solutions allowing customers to leverage these leading AI, high performance computing and quantum platforms in Azure to advance scientific discovery.
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