Microsoft researchers just published an in-depth article on the formation of Majorana qubits. This is the first step in the company’s new roadmap, which aims to be able to build a quantum supercomputer within ten years.
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Quantum computing promises to revolutionize certain calculations by harnessing the laws of quantum physics. These machines are still far from reality, but research is progressing steadily. Microsoft is one of the companies that started the quantum supercomputer race and just published its roadmap. The company hopes to build its own quantum supercomputer within ten years.
The first step is the creation of qubits, or quantum bits, the basic unit for quantum computation. Last year Microsoft announced that it had taken an important first step: the creation of a qubit based on the Majorana particle, a fermion that has the peculiarity of being its own antiparticle. The researchers have just published their latest results in the journal Physical Review B.
Quantum error correction is required
The roadmap comprises a total of six steps. Current qubits are not yet reliable enough. So the next step is to include hardware-level error correction, called a topological qubit, and then intertwine these to reduce the number of errors. Google, one of its main competitors in this field, has already managed to intertwine non-abelian anyons.
Microsoft hopes to reach the sixth and final stage of its roadmap, building a quantum supercomputer, within ten years. Microsoft CEO Satya Nadelle said such a machine could achieve 250 years of advances in chemistry and materials science in just 25 years.