While rivals produced a steady stream of announcements – notably Google’s “Willow” at the end of 2024 – Microsoft seemed to be taking longer.
Pursuing this approach was, in the company’s own words, a “high-risk, high-rewards” strategy, but one it now believes is going to pay off.
“In the same way that the invention of semiconductors made today’s smartphones, computers and electronics possible, topoconductors and the new type of chip they enable offer a path to developing quantum system,” Microsoft said.
The biggest challenge of quantum computers relates to their fundamental building block, called a qubit, which is incredibly fast but also extremely difficult to control and prone to errors.
The more qubits a chip has the more capable it is.
Microsoft says it has put eight of its new topological qubits on its new chip – considerably less than the chips created by some of its rivals.
However, it claims to have a path to scaling it up to a million qubits – which would create immense computing power.
Professor Paul Stevenson of Surrey University said the research published by Microsoft was a “significant step”, but he felt it had tough challenges ahead.
“Until the next steps have been achieved, it is too soon to be anything more than cautiously optimistic,” he said.
Chris Heunen, Professor of Quantum Programming at the University of Edinburgh, told the BBC he felt Microsoft’s plans were “credible”.
“This is promising progress after more than a decade of challenges, and the next few years will see whether this exciting roadmap pans out,” he said.
