In 1937, there was a particle called Majorana fermion. The particle has some unique properties and it has long been believed that Majoraana particles can prove useful for quantum computing. In Wednesday's surprise announcement Microsoft (NASDAQ: MSFT) Revealing a quantum computing chip Majoraana 1, a chip that successfully uses a few strange major particles to encode quantum information.
Microsoft began following this path about 20 years ago, and the research has now produced what looks like a huge quantum computing breakthrough. The Majorana 1 chip contains eight Quarbits or qubits, which is much lower than the top quantum computers currently running.
However, Microsoft sees a way to expand the quantum number to one million. At this scale, quantum computing may be useful in solving real-world problems.
One of the main obstacles to preventing quantum computer expansion is error correction. Qubits are fragile and can be damaged by various environmental factors. This introduces an error that may derail before it is completed. A future quantum computer that can compute useful will require a way to correct these errors.
The benefit of the main particles Microsoft utilizes is that they tend to be more stable than other quantum computing methods and are susceptible to errors. There will still be errors introduced and this error needs to be overcome to scale the chip to 1 million tons.
For example, the process of measuring systems introduces errors, but Microsoft has identified ways to reduce these errors. The company is also working on new error correction methods, which are necessary to improve quantum counting.
What Microsoft has done successfully is to prove that quantum information can be encoded using Majoraana particles. The next step is to start working towards useful quantum chips.
Microsoft will start with a single-quantity device and build it into devices with larger Qubits, quantum error detection, and ultimate quantum error correction. The properties of major particles that tend to protect quantum information will make error correction simpler than previous methods.
“Microsoft intends to build a patient prototype based on years rather than decades,” the Microsoft Azure blog post details the Majoraana 1 chip. There are two things that investors can understand.
First, since its new quantum computing technology can be used for quantum error correction, there is no description of what complications and problems Microsoft may encounter. “It will be clear that continuing to refine these processes and enabling all elements to accelerate scale collaboration will require more engineering efforts,” Microsoft said in another press release.
