Microsoft presents the first quantum chip, claims to create novel matters

Microsoft on Wednesday announced Majorana 1, his first quantum computing chip.

Achievement occurs after the company spent almost two decades of research in the field, but Microsoft states that the construction of Majorana 1 required that it created a completely new state of matter, which it refers to as a topological state.

The Microsoft quantum chip uses eight topological qubits using Indian arsenuro, which is a semiconductor and aluminum, which is a superconductor.

“The difficulty of developing appropriate materials to create exotic particles and their associated topological state A blog Wednesday.

Understand the topological matter and make it work in the construction of a chip that exceeds quantum required that Microsoft Spray atom of Atom so that the materials align perfectly, the company wrote in the blog.

“Ironically, that is why we need a quantum computer, because understanding these materials is incredibly difficult,” said Krysta Svore, Fellow Technical Fellow, on the blog. “With a climbing quantum computer, we can predict materials with even better properties to build the next generation of quantum computers beyond the scale.”

TO New paper In Nature magazine describes the chip in detail.

Technologists believe that quantum computers could one day efficiently solve problems that would be serious, if not impossible, for classic computers. Today’s computers use bits that may be on or off, while quantum computers use quantum bits or qubits that can work in both states simultaneously.

Google and IBM have too developed quantum processors, like smaller companies Ionq and Computing rejects.

Microsoft will not allow customers to use their Majorana 1 chip through the company’s Azure public cloud, since it plans to do with its custom artificial intelligence chip, Maia 100. Instead, Majorana 1 is a step towards a target of one million qubits in a chip, after extensive physical research.

Instead of trusting Taiwan semiconductor or another company for manufacturing, Microsoft is manufacturing the components of Majorana 1 in the USA. It is possible because the work is developing on a small scale.

“We want to reach a few hundred qubits before starting talking about commercial reliability,” said Jason Zander, Microsoft Executive Vice President, CNBC.

Meanwhile, the company will be involved with national laboratories and universities in research using Majorana 1.

Despite the research approach, investors are fascinated by Quantum.

Ionq’s shares increased 237% in 2024, and Rigetti earned almost 1,500%. The two generated $ 14.8 million combined in revenues of the third quarter. Other profits It arrived in Januaryafter Microsoft issued a Blog Declaring that 2025 is “the year to be ready for quantity.”

The Quantum Quantum cloud service of Microsoft, which allows developers to experiment with programs and algorithms, offers access to Ionq and Rigetti chips. It is possible that a quantum chip of Microsoft is available through Azure before 2030, said Zander.

“There are many speculations that we are decades of this,” he said. “We believe it is more like years.”

Instead of existing as an independent category, quantum computing could end up increasing other parts of Microsoft. For example, there is the Microsoft artificial intelligence business, which has an annualized income execution rate that exceeds $ 13 billion. Quantum computers could be used to build data used to train AI models, Zander said.

“Now you can ask you to invent a new molecule, invent a new medicine, something that would really have been impossible to do before,” said Zander.