Microsoft wants to build Quantum Supercomputer within 10 years
In a recent announcement, Microsoft revealed its plans to build a quantum supercomputer, using the topological qubits its researchers have been developing for several years. According to Krysta Svore, Microsoft’s VP of advanced quantum development, the company believes it will take less than a decade to build a quantum supercomputer using qubits that can perform a million quantum operations per second. While there are several intermediate milestones to be achieved, this is an important advancement in quantum computing technology. Microsoft has announced a new measurement as the computer industry strives to move beyond the current age of noisy intermediate-scale quantum computation (NISQ).
“We think about our roadmap and the time to the quantum supercomputer in terms of years rather than decades,” Svore said.
In a major development, the team at Microsoft successfully demonstrated the creation of Majorana-based qubits, as announced last year. Majorana qubits, a type of quantum bit, are known for their exceptional stability compared to traditional techniques. However, making these qubits is an extremely challenging task. In a major development, Microsoft has reached the first milestone on the road to a quantum supercomputer. The tech giant had invested in this technology early on, and now, after a year of announcing this breakthrough, the company’s team has published a new peer-reviewed paper in Physical Review B of the American Physical Society. The article confirms that Microsoft successfully reached the first milestone toward building a quantum supercomputer. Microsoft recently announced that it has made significant progress in improving its devices. The company has presented results from a larger number of devices and a significantly larger amount of data than a year ago when it first announced this initiative.
In a recent statement, Svore noted that the current implementation phase is fundamental. According to recent reports, noisy medium-scale quantum machines have been developed. Physical qubits form the basis of a new technology that has yet to prove practical and usable due to their unreliability. In today’s world, scientific research and commercial industries are two important areas that drive innovation and progress. Both fields have their unique goals and objectives, but they share a common goal of advancing technology and improving the way we live. While scientific research aims to expand our knowledge and understanding, the industry’s next goal is to reach a resilient level. In a recent statement, experts stressed the need to use physical qubits in conjunction with error-correcting codes to function as a logical qubit. It is no longer enough to rely solely on physical qubits for operations. This approach enables more efficient and effective use of qubits in various applications. According to Svore, reaching this milestone requires a quantum computer capable of performing one million reliable quantum operations per second, with a failure rate of one per trillion operations.
According to Svore, a team is making great progress building hardware-protected qubits. This is the next step in the process. Scientists have developed qubits that are smaller than 10 microns on one side and can perform one qubit operation in less than a microsecond. The team has announced their plans to work on entangling the qubits and operating them through a process called braiding. This concept has been discussed as a theory since the early 2000s.
Svore announced plans to build a smaller multiqubit system and demonstrate a full quantum system. This follows their recent progress in the field.
Microsoft has set out an ambitious roadmap and it remains to be seen how well the team can execute it given the long time it took to reach the first milestone. In a race to get past the NISQ era, IBM, IonQ and other companies are aiming for similar results using more established methods for building their qubits. This competition has led to an arms race between the companies.
Microsoft has made an announcement regarding the roadmap and introduction of Azure Quantum Elements. This platform is designed to improve scientific discovery by merging high-performance computing, quantum and AI. In addition, the company also launched Copilot for Azure Quantum, an AI model specially trained to help scientists and students generate quantum-related computations and simulations.
