According to Microsoft, the researchers have created new quantum computer processors that rely on unprecedented states. The leap in Majorana 1 has placed a major step towards the age of powerful quantum computers that unleash current unattainable advances across artificial intelligence, medical research, sustainable energy, and many other industries. .
Since their invention, traditional computers have relied on semiconductor chips that use binary “bits” of information, most often represented as strings of 1 and 0. These chips are becoming increasingly powerful and smaller at the same time, but there are physical limitations on the amount of information that can be stored in this hardware. In comparison, quantum computers utilize “qubits” to exploit the strange properties exhibited by subatomic particles.
Two qubits can hold four values at any time, with more qubits being converted to an exponential increase in computational power. This allows quantum computers to process information at speeds and scales that today’s supercomputers seem almost outdated. For example, last December, Google announced it. Experimental quantum computer systems The researchers, as we understand, complete the calculations that complete most supercomputers by the time they complete 10 losses ages, for a longer period than the universe era. It says it will take just 5 minutes.
However, Google’s Quantum Processing Unit (QPU) is based on a technology that is different from Microsoft’s Mayarana 1 design, detailed in a paper published in the journal on February 19th. Nature. After over 17 years of design and research, Majorana 1 has become what the company calls “topological qubits” through the creation of topological superconductivity, a state of material that has previously been conceptualized but never documented. It’s dependent.
Instead of traditional computers relying on electronics, Majorana 1 is working on the “world’s first topo conductor” using the Majorana particles first described by theoretical physicist Ettore Mayarana in 1937 . According to Microsoft, the machine is based on a “gate-defined device” that combines semiconductor indium indium arsenide with aluminum, a superconductor. When the temperature of the topo conductor is reduced to absolute zero (approximately -400°F) and adjusted to a magnetic field, the device “forms topological superconducting nanowires with Mayorana Zero Mode (MZMS) on the wire.”
The Majorana 1 is reportedly more reliable than the design of its competitor quantum processing units, but it still illustrates the problems that plague all experimental quantum computing chips. As shown in the physics of quantum particles, qubits may be able to hold two information at the same time, but when a human operator tries to load them, the information will be “deco” to a basic 1 or 0. “. However, Microsoft researchers have further fixed the hope that fine-tuning will eventually produce a more reliable and scalable topoconduit that forms the basis of the first true quantum computer. The Majorana 1 currently owns only eight qubits, but it does not stand out from the existing QPU prototype. But it is built to accommodate more.
“It’s not just a milestone, it’s the gateway to solving some of the world’s most challenging problems,” said Chetan Nayak, a technology fellow at Microsoft and corporate vice president of quantum hardware, on Wednesday. I stated.
