Powerful quantum computers in years not decades, says Microsoft

Microsoft recently announced a new chip called Majorana 1, claiming that it will be able to build quantum computers, thereby solving "meaningful industrial-scale problems in the next few years rather than decades." This is the latest advancement in the field of quantum computing, which utilizes the principles of particle physics to create a new type of computer capable of solving problems that ordinary computers cannot.

Building sufficiently powerful quantum computers to solve important real-world problems is extremely challenging, and some experts believe it will take decades. Microsoft says this timeline can now be accelerated due to its "transformative" progress in developing new chips based on "topological conductors," a novel material. The company believes that its topological conductors have the potential to be as revolutionary as semiconductors have been in the history of computer development.

However, experts told the BBC that more data is needed before the significance of this new research and its impact on quantum computing can be fully assessed. Nvidia CEO Jensen Huang said in January that he believes "very useful" quantum computing will be achieved within 20 years. Chetan Nayak, a quantum hardware technology researcher at Microsoft, said he believes these advances will upend conventional wisdom about the future of quantum computers.

"Many people say that quantum computing, that is, useful quantum computers, are still decades away," Nayak said. "I think this gives us a glimpse of the possibility of achieving that in the next few years rather than decades." Travis Humble, director of the Quantum Science Center at Oak Ridge National Laboratory in the United States, agreed that Microsoft is now able to deliver prototypes faster, but he cautioned that there is still much work to be done. "The long-term goal of solving industrial applications on quantum computers will require further scaling of these prototypes," he said.

Quantum computing promises to perform calculations that would take today's systems millions of years to complete, with the potential to achieve breakthroughs in medicine, chemistry, and many other fields. Currently, numerous tech companies, including Silicon Valley giants, are engaged in a multi-billion dollar race to develop sufficiently powerful quantum computers to solve these problems. Microsoft is tackling this problem in a different way than most of its competitors, and its path to building a quantum computer relies on being able to create a "topological conductor."

Microsoft is using newly developed materials to create a new state of matter—a so-called "topological state" that is neither gas, liquid, nor solid, and has only existed in theory for a relatively short time. Specifically, it relies on so-called Majorana particles, which themselves were previously considered theoretical—the [research claiming their discovery in 2018 had to be retracted](https://physicsworld.com/a/retraction-of-nature-paper-puts-majorana-research-on-a-new-path/). While competitors have released a series of announcements—notably [Google's "Willow" at the end of 2024](https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/articles/c791ng0zvl3o)—Microsoft seems to have taken longer.

In the company's own words, pursuing this approach is a "high-risk, high-reward" strategy, but the company now believes that this strategy will work. "Just as the invention of semiconductors made today's smartphones, computers, and electronics possible, topological conductors and the new chips they support provide a path to developing quantum systems," Microsoft said. The biggest challenge for quantum computers is related to their fundamental building blocks, called qubits, which are extremely fast but also extremely difficult to control and prone to errors.

The more qubits a chip has, the more powerful it is. Microsoft says it has placed eight new topological qubits on its new chip—far fewer than the chips made by some of its competitors. However, it claims to have a path to scaling this up to one million qubits—which would create enormous computing power. Professor Paul Stevenson of the University of Surrey said that the research released by Microsoft is "an important step," but he believes that the company faces significant challenges.

"It is too early to be cautiously optimistic until the next steps are achieved," he said. Chris Heunen, a professor of quantum programming at the University of Edinburgh, told the BBC that he believes Microsoft's plan is "credible." "After more than a decade of challenges, this is a promising development, and the coming years will see whether this exciting roadmap will be realized," he said.