Microsoft's New Quantum Chip, Explained

Microsoft’s new quantum chip could be a huge deal but there’s a big debate about it! Here’s why... The reason we want quantum computers is they could do new things, like simulate the natural world even better. The reason we don’t have useful ones yet is that they need to be bigger. But the problem is when you make them bigger, they have more errors. That's because the information inside, the “qubits,” are incredibly sensitive and they get disrupted easily. So Microsoft tried to build a new kind of qubit - a “topological qubit” - where instead of storing the information in one place, they spread it out using a NEW STATE OF MATTER called “majorana quasi-particles.” That’s awesome because in theory you could get fewer errors with a bigger quantum computer, because if you mess with one part, you still have the information in another! The big claim in their press release is that they have not only created these new qubits but can control them. BUT nobody outside of Microsoft has seen proof of the controlling part. In their peer reviewed paper, they show results that are consistent with Majorana quasi-particles, but don’t definitively prove that’s what they’re seeing. So what they’ve already shown is big, and what they MIGHT show is huge if true. #shorts #microsoft #majorana1 #quantum #quantumcomputer