After almost 20 years of research, Microsoft unveiled the Majorana 1, their new quantum computing chip. In order to create this revolutionary new processor, Microsoft claims they needed to invent an entirely new state of matter.
Their new Topological Core, parts of which were designed atom by atom, can allegedly create and observe Majorana zero modes, a type of subatomic particle that was previously only theoretical. Rather than a typical superconductor that conducts electricity when cooled, the quantum processing unit leverages a topological conductor — which conducts electricity only at its edges — to create and observe these particles.
According to Microsoft, “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.”
To understand exactly what Microsoft is boasting, it is important to understand how most computers work today. Imagine flipping a coin. The spinning coin can either land on heads or tails. That is how traditional central processing units are built. They are made up of tiny little bits that can either be a one or a zero, representing on or off.
This means to store just a single two-digit number, you might need five whole bits. The larger the number, the more bits required. This makes complex calculations potentially take centuries for the computer to finish solving.
However, quantum mechanics has a strange principle called superposition. According to superposition, the spinning coin is both heads and tails before it is observed. Quantum computers leverage this property, instead relying on aptly named quantum bits. These qubits can behave like two different objects simultaneously, meaning they hold a combination of both one and zero at the same time.
The more qubits that are paired together, the more powerful the quantum computer. Unfortunately, more qubits also typically means more errors due to their unique nature. Last December, Google released their Willow chip which was able to solve this problem using very complex math, and could actually exponentially reduce errors as the number of qubits increased.
Microsoft’s chip, despite fitting in the palm of your hand, “offers a clear path to fit a million qubits.” At the moment, though, they have only placed eight of these qubits on the Majorana 1.
While this does seem to be a major breakthrough, some believe it is too good to be true. Microsoft’s paper, published in Nature, only shows intermediary results, and does not actually prove that they have invented a true topological superconductor.
At best, the Majorana 1 is the first step toward seeing practical quantum computer usage in the next decade, and at worst is nothing more than an exaggeration of progress meant to improve stock price. Either way, the buzz created by Microsoft’s announcement is keeping quantum computing in the forefront of the technology world.
Quantum computing is not a new idea. Back in the 1980s, famous physicists Richard Feynman and David Duetsch theorized that a quantum computer could be leveraged to easily solve a lot of the complex problems that would take classical computers billions of years to solve, if they could solve them all.
For example, think of your favorite 300-digit number. Could you list all of its factors? Do you think your computer could? If you had a couple hundred thousand years to wait, it could do it. But if you had a quantum computer capable of executing the theory, you could know all the factors in about a second. This might not seem that cool, but prime number factorization has a huge role in cybersecurity and encryption, meaning we can make things a whole lot more secure.
Quantum computers could also provide wonderful insights in biology and chemistry by accurately calculating behavior for enzymes, surface materials and pollutants, leading to breakthroughs in healthcare, agriculture, environmental science, material science and many other fields.
To this day, the limiting factor has been only the physical capabilities of our hardware. While Microsoft’s release of the Majorana 1 might be embellished with a lot of smoke and mirrors, it certainly is an important stepping stone to seeing real results much sooner than we think.