Microsoft unveils Majorana 1, its first quantum processor chip

Microsoft has developed its first quantum processor chip, Majorana 1, which is based on new architecture that has been 17 years in the making and has the capability of “solving meaningful, industrial-scale problems in years, not decades”.

The Majorana particle powers the chip, which is the “world’s first topoconductor”, a new type of material that is neither gas, liquid or solid, but a “topological state”, according to a Microsoft blog post titled ‘Microsoft’s Majorana 1 chip carves new path for quantum computing’. Microsoft says that the particles produce “more reliable and scalable qubits”, which are at the core of a quantum computer. 

Majorana 1 has the potential to fit a million qubits onto a single chip, which would be “capable of tackling the most complex industrial and societal problems,” according to Microsoft. “All the world’s current computers operating together can’t do what a one-million-qubit quantum computer will be able to do.”

Microsoft outlined its work in a peer-reviewed paper published in Nature, explaining how its researchers were able to create the topological qubit. The new chip has eight topological qubits but Microsoft hopes to eventually scale to one million, which could perform simulations that are a lot more accurate.

“It’s one thing to discover a new state of matter,” said Chetan Nayak, technical fellow at Microsoft. “It’s another to take advantage of it to rethink quantum computing at scale.”