The Quantum race! A watershed moment for Microsoft?
"Quantum's transistor moment...!" Satya Nadella ??
Microsoft made a mega announcement this week about its unveiling of the Majorana 1 Quantum chip, the chip uses topoconductor material technology which allows the Majorana 1 to produce more reliable and controllable qubits.
Controlling qubits is one of the most challenging areas in developing a quantum computer, Microsoft decided early on in choosing the pathway of developing a topological qubit architecture as it had more promise of reducing the error rate and gave the ability to scale up to 1 million cubits.
Controlling qubits and scaling them to 1 million is basically like the Holy Grail in quantum computing, it will allow quantum computing power to be deployed into transformative and real-world situations such as:
-????????? Accurately simulating molecules to aid medical discoveries
-????????? Modelling exotic materials to enable new material development
-????????? Optimizing complex numerical problems, finance, logistics, space exploration.
Classical computers are of course currently deployed on working on such problems; however the progress and discovery rate is slow compared to the potential that quantum computing can offer.
ONLY 8 Qubits so far….
Microsoft pushed this part a bit further down the article for obvious reasons, it’s a bit of an anti-climax in comparison to the 1 million figure mentioned several times over.
However this could well and truly be the transistor moment, this happened when early computers were using transistor numbers in the double digits and soon scaled up to much larger numbers. Quantum technology looks like it’s on the precipice of this type of phenomenon.
Could this announcement from Microsoft force the tech industry to focus more on quantum computing?
Well, it will certainly heat up the race and the investment levels should naturally scale up and be on par with the investment levels into AI.
The tipping point will come once a quantum computer can be shown to solve complex real-world challenges, this will demonstrate its commercial capacity (it’s money making ability) – which is something that is still elusive!
If you are interested in learning more, read the full breakdown of the announcement on:
What are your thoughts? leave a comment below.