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Today's Topics:
1. Microsoft Has Created a New State of Matter to Power Quantum
Computers (Stephen Loosley)
2. Microsoft-DARPA yield Majorana 1 .. a possible quantum chip
breakthrough (Stephen Loosley)
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Message: 1
Date: Thu, 20 Feb 2025 22:37:50 +1030
From: Stephen Loosley <[email protected]>
To: "link" <[email protected]>
Subject: [LINK] Microsoft Has Created a New State of Matter to Power
Quantum Computers
Message-ID: <[email protected]>
Content-Type: text/plain; charset="UTF-8"
Microsoft Says It Has Created a New State of Matter to Power Quantum Computers
Microsoft?s new ?topological qubit? is not based on a solid, liquid or gas. It
is another phase of matter that many experts did not think was possible.
[Video caption: Microsoft?s new quantum chip is based a new state of matter
developed by the tech giant.Credit... Video by Grant Hindsley For The New York
Times]
By Cade Metz New York Times from Redmond, Wash. Feb. 19, 2025
https://www.nytimes.com/2025/02/19/technology/microsoft-quantum-computing-topological-qubit.html?unlocked_article_code=1.yE4.OPUy.cWBvzRJSn1v8
(and)
https://thequantuminsider.com/2025/02/19/microsofts-majorana-topological-chip-an-advance-17-years-in-the-making/
Anyone who has sat through a third-grade science class knows there are three
primary states of matter: solid, liquid and gas.
Microsoft now says it has created a new state of matter in its quest to make a
powerful machine, called a quantum computer, that could accelerate the
development of everything from batteries to medicines to artificial
intelligence.
On Wednesday, Microsoft?s scientists said they had built what is known as a
?topological qubit? based on this new phase of physical existence, which could
be harnessed to solve mathematical, scientific and technological problems.
With the development, Microsoft is raising the stakes in what is set to be the
next big technological contest, beyond today?s race over artificial
intelligence. Scientists have chased the dream of a quantum computer ? a
machine that could exploit the strange and exceedingly powerful behavior of
subatomic particles or very cold objects ? since the 1980s.
The push heated up in December when Google unveiled an experimental quantum
computer that needed just five minutes to complete a calculation that most
supercomputers could not finish in 10 septillion years ? longer than the age of
the known universe.
Microsoft?s quantum technology could leapfrog the methods under development at
Google. As part of its research, the company built multiple topological qubits
inside a new kind of computer chip that combines the strengths of the
semiconductors that power classical computers with the superconductors that are
typically used to build a quantum computer.
When such a chip is cooled to extremely low temperatures, it behaves in unusual
and powerful ways that Microsoft believes will allow it to solve technological,
mathematical and scientific problems that classical machines never could. The
technology is not as volatile as other quantum technologies, the company said,
making it easier to exploit its power.
Some question whether Microsoft has achieved this milestone, and many leading
academics said quantum computers would not be fully realized for decades. But
Microsoft?s scientists said their methods would help them reach the finish line
sooner.
?We view this as something that is years away, not decades away,? said Chetan
Nayak, a Microsoft technical fellow who led the team that built the technology.
Chetan Nayak, a Microsoft technical fellow, next to a refrigerator that cools
quantum computing components to temperatures colder than space.Credit...Grant
Hindsley for The New York Times
Microsoft?s technology, which was detailed in a research paper published in the
science journal Nature on Wednesday, adds new impetus to a race that could
reshape the technological landscape. In addition to accelerating progress
across many technological and scientific fields, a quantum computer could be
powerful enough to break the encryption that protects national secrets.
Any advances are set to have geopolitical implications. Even as the United
States explores quantum computing primarily through corporations like Microsoft
and a wave of start-ups, the Chinese government has said it is investing $15.2
billion in the technology. The European Union has committed $7.2 billion.
Quantum computing, which builds on decades of research into a type of physics
called quantum mechanics, is still an experimental technology. But after recent
strides by Microsoft, Google and others, scientists are confident that the
technology will eventually live up to its promise.
?Quantum computing is a thrilling prospect for physics, and for the world,?
said Frank Wilczek, a theoretical physicist at the Massachusetts Institute of
Technology.
To understand quantum computing, it helps to know how a traditional computer
works. A smartphone, laptop or desktop PC relies on tiny chips made from
semiconductors, which are materials that conduct electricity in some but not
all situations. These chips store and process numbers, adding them, multiplying
them and so on. They perform these calculations by manipulating ?bits? of
information. Each bit holds either a 1 or a 0.
A quantum computer operates differently. A quantum bit, or qubit, relies on the
curious behavior of subatomic particles or exotic materials cooled to extremely
low temperatures.
When it is either extremely small or extremely cold, a single object can behave
like two separate objects at the same time. By harnessing that behavior,
scientists can build a qubit that holds a combination of 1 and 0. This means
that two qubits can hold four values at once. And as the number of qubits
grows, a quantum computer becomes exponentially more powerful.
Companies use a variety of techniques to build these machines. In the United
States, most, including Google, build qubits using superconductors, which are
materials that conduct electricity without losing the energy they are
transmitting. They create these superconductors by cooling metals to extremely
low temperatures.
[Image caption: Dr. Nayak holding Microsoft?s new quantum computing chip.
Credit... Grant Hindsley for The New York Times]
Microsoft has bet on an approach that few others are taking: combining
semiconductors with superconductors. The basic principle ? along with the name
topological qubit ? was first proposed in 1997 by Alexei Kitaev, a Russian
American physicist.
The company began working on this unusual project in the early 2000s, when many
researchers did not think such technology was possible. It is Microsoft?s
longest-running research project.
?This is something that all three C.E.O.s of this company have bet on,? Satya
Nadella, Microsoft?s chief executive, said in an interview. (The company?s
previous C.E.O.s were Bill Gates, a founder, and Steve Ballmer, who ran
Microsoft in the early 2000s.)
The company has now created a single device that is part indium arsenide (a
type of semiconductor) and part aluminum (a superconductor at low
temperatures). When it is cooled to about 400 degrees below zero, it exhibits a
kind of otherworldly behavior that might make quantum computers possible.
Philip Kim, a physics professor at Harvard, said Microsoft?s new creation was
significant because topological qubits could accelerate the development of
quantum computers. ?If everything works out, Microsoft?s research could be
revolutionary,? he said.
But Jason Alicea, a professor of theoretical physics at the California
Institute of Technology, questioned whether the company had actually built a
topological qubit, saying the behavior of quantum systems is often hard to
prove.
?A topological qubit is possible in principle, and people agree it is a
worthwhile goal,? Dr. Alicea said. ?You have to verify, though, that a device
behaves in all the magical ways that theory predicts it should; otherwise, the
reality may turn out to be less rosy for quantum computing. Fortunately,
Microsoft is now set up to try.?
Microsoft said that it had built only eight topological qubits, and that they
were not yet able to perform calculations that would change the nature of
computing. But the company?s researchers see this as a step toward building
something far more powerful.
For now, the technology still makes too many errors to be truly useful, though
scientists are developing ways to reduce mistakes.
Last year, Google showed that as it increased the number of qubits, it could
exponentially reduce the number of errors through complex mathematical
techniques.
Error correction will be less complex and more efficient if Microsoft can
perfect its topological qubits, many scientists said.
While a qubit can hold multiple values at the same time, it is burdened by an
inherent problem. When researchers try to read the information stored in a
qubit, it ?decoheres? and collapses into a classical bit that holds only one
value: a 1 or a 0.
[Image caption: The clean room of a Microsoft lab that works largely to
validate quantum computing components built elsewhere. It is lit a specific
yellow hue to protect components.Credit... Grant Hindsley for The New York
Times]
This means that if someone tries reading a qubit, it loses its basic power. So
scientists need to overcome an essential problem: How do you build a computer
if it breaks whenever you use it?
Google?s error correction methods are a way of dealing with this issue.
Microsoft believes it can solve the problem faster because topological qubits
behave differently and are theoretically less likely to collapse when someone
reads the information they store.
?It makes for a really good qubit,? Dr. Nayak said.
----
------------------------------
Message: 2
Date: Thu, 20 Feb 2025 22:53:35 +1030
From: Stephen Loosley <[email protected]>
To: "link" <[email protected]>
Subject: [LINK] Microsoft-DARPA yield Majorana 1 .. a possible quantum
chip breakthrough
Message-ID: <[email protected]>
Content-Type: text/plain; charset="UTF-8"
Microsoft-DARPA collaboration yields possible quantum chip breakthrough
A better way to check and store qubits could enable big applications for
smarter drones, better processing, and doing much more with less.
By Patrick Tucker Science & Technology Editor February 19, 2025
https://www.defenseone.com/technology/2025/02/microsoft-darpa-collaboration-yields-possible-quantum-chip-breakthrough/403127/
and
https://www.nature.com/articles/s41586-024-08445-2
Researchers at Microsoft, with support from DARPA, say they?ve designed a
quantum computer chip that could lead to artificial-intelligence tools that use
far fewer computer resources and energy.
According to a Microsoft blog on the announcement and their accompanying paper,
the team has developed a new way to check the state of a quantum computation
without disrupting the delicate information underlying it.
https://azure.microsoft.com/en-us/blog/quantum/2025/02/19/microsoft-unveils-majorana-1-the-worlds-first-quantum-processor-powered-by-topological-qubits/
This technique, called interferometric single-shot parity measurement, was
tested using a special combination of indium arsenide and aluminum, or InAs?Al.
They?ve used that to create a chip, the Majorana 1, which Microsoft described
as ?the world?s first Quantum Processing Unit, QPU, powered by a topological
core, designed to scale to a million qubits on a single chip.?
In simple terms, the method allows scientists to determine whether two quantum
bits (qubits) are in the same state or different states?kind of like checking
if two spinning coins landed on the same side?without looking at them directly.
This is important because traditional ways of measuring qubits can disturb
them, simply because observing or measuring processes at the quantum level can
change the process or phenomenon being observed. making quantum calculations
less reliable.
The breakthrough would be especially useful for a type of quantum computing
called topological quantum computation, which is designed to be more stable and
resistant to errors.
In this approach, information is stored in a way that makes it harder to lose
due to tiny changes in the environment, a major challenge for quantum
computers. If successfully implemented on a larger scale, this technique could
help make quantum computers more reliable and easier to build. The paper
provides a measurement technique that Microsoft? has integrated into Majorana 1.
Related articles
DARPA looking for tools to test AI
FY2025 NDAA angles to enhance DOD?s AI and quantum sciences capabilities
Quantum chips could have big implications for artificial intelligence as they
allow for the processing of very large amounts of data in parallel, taking far
less time and using fewer computer resources than traditional methods. For
instance if you want to scale a computer running on highly advanced NVIDIA H100
GPUs, you would need to add more and more GPUs, leading to a linear increase in
both performance and energy consumption. But a 10,000-qubit quantum computer
could perform specific tasks with far less energy than traditional
supercomputers.
That has relevance to the military, whose future operating environments will
feature heavy electro-magnetic-spectrum warfare. Among other things, that means
drones will need more onboard computing capability so they can analyze
surveillance and intelligence data and make decisions autonomously. Quantum
machine learning applied to encryption and security could render many classic
encryption obsolete. And there are also potential applications in running large
language models with far fewer computers and much less data?hence the support
from DARPA under its Quantum Benchmarking Initiative, or QBI.
But Microsoft and others say that the nearest-term applications will blend
traditional computing processes with quantum ones.
?This is truly an advance for the industry: building a custom chip that uses
topological qubits which many consider extremely useful for scaling to powerful
quantum computers.? The announcement reinforces our assessment that
fault-tolerant quantum hardware is closer than many business leaders think,?
Markus Pflitsch, founder and CEO of Terra Quantum, said in a statement.
Of course, quantum breakthroughs don?t always turn out to be exactly what they
seem, and the idea of measuring something without measuring it directly opens
further questions into what exactly is being measured? The Microsoft
announcement doesn?t include many of the specific technical details that might
nominally accompany such breakthroughs but, according to Nature, the
researchers did provide some experts with a bit more information at a
closed-door meeting in California.
One of the attendees, a University of Oxford theoretical physicist Steven
Simon, told the journal, ?Would I bet my life that they?re seeing what they
think they?re seeing? No, but it looks pretty good.?
------------------------------
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