Microsoft reveals its first quantum computing chip, the Majorana 1
The achievement comes after the company has spent nearly two decades of research in the field.
Technologists believe quantum computers could one day efficiently solve problems that would be taxing if not impossible for classical computers. Today's computers use bits that can be either on or off while quantum computers employ quantum bits, or qubits, that can operate in both states simultaneously.
Google and IBM have also developed quantum processors, as have smaller companies IonQ and Rigetti Computing. Microsoft's quantum chip employs eight topological qubits using indium arsenide, which is a semiconductor, and aluminum, which is a superconductor. A new paper in the journal Nature describes the chip in detail.
Microsoft won't be allowing clients to use its Majorana 1 chip through the company's Azure public cloud, as it plans to do with its custom artificial intelligence chip, Maia 100. Instead, Majorana 1 is a step toward a goal of a million qubits on a chip, following extensive physics research.
Rather than rely on Taiwan Semiconductor or another company for fabrication, Microsoft is manufacturing the components of Majorana 1 itself in the U.S. That's possible because the work is unfolding at a small scale.
'We want to get to a few hundred qubits before we start talking about commercial reliability,' Jason Zander, a Microsoft executive vice president, told CNBC.
In the meantime, the company will engage with national laboratories and universities on research using Majorana 1.
Despite the focus on research, investors are fascinated by quantum.
IonQ shares went up 237% in 2024, and Rigetti gained nearly 1,500%. The two generated a combined $14.8 million in third-quarter revenue. Further gains came in January, after Microsoft issued a blog post declaring that 2025 is 'the year to become quantum-ready.'
Microsoft's Azure Quantum cloud service, which lets developers experiment with programs and algorithms, offers access to chips from IonQ and Rigetti. It's possible that a Microsoft quantum chip might become available through Azure before 2030, Zander said.
'There's a lot of speculation that we're decades off from this,' he said. 'We believe it's more like years.'
Rather than exist as a stand-alone category, quantum computing might end up boosting other parts of Microsoft. For example, there's Microsoft's AI business, which has an annualized revenue run rate that exceeds $13 billion. Quantum computers could be used to build data used to train AI models, Zander said.
'Now you can ask it to invent some new molecule, invent some new drug, something that really would have been impossible to do before,' Zander said.
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