Microsoft on Wednesday introduces Majorana 1 – a “world’s first” quantum chip expected to push the capabilities of quantum computers to new limits “solving meaningful, industrial-scale problems in years, not decades.”
Considered one of Microsoft's longest research projects, quantum scientists were able to take a sub-atomic particle – said to have only been a theory until now – and "not only observe it, but control it, creating an entirely new material and a new architecture in computing," Microsoft said in a 12-minute video explaining the attributes of Majorana 1.
The quantum chip is the first of its kind to be powered by “Topological Core architecture,” a type of material that can “observe and control Majorana particles to produce more reliable and scalable qubits,” Microsft said.
A "qubit" is the basic unit of information in quantum computing, comparable to the binary bit in classical computing, and is the building block of quantum computers, the company explains. Its challenge to scientists is that traditionally the qubit is extremely difficult to control and prone to errors.
Microsoft says the Majorana particles, made of indium arsenide and aluminum atom by atom, help protect quantum information from random disturbance. They can also reliably measure that information and be digitally controlled, another first for quantum computing.
“Majorana 1 brings us closer to harnessing millions of potential qubits working together to solve the unsolvable – from new medicines to revolutionary materials – all on a single chip,” the tech giant said in an X post on Wednesday.
A breakthrough in quantum computing. Majorana 1 brings us closer to harnessing millions of potential qubits working together to solve the unsolvable—from new medicines to revolutionary materials—all on a single chip. #QuantumComputing #QuantumReady https://t.co/mpj8VwEQj0 pic.twitter.com/zlQoyoFURv
undefined Microsoft (@Microsoft) February 19, 2025
One chip, one million quibits
The Majorana 1 processor has the breakthrough ability to fit a million qubits on one single chip, “a needed threshold for quantum computers to deliver transformative, real-world solutions” that previously, we did not have the computing power to accomplish, it said.
Commenting on his team's research, Microsoft technical fellow Chetan Nayak said, “Whatever you’re doing in the quantum space needs to have a path to a million qubits. If it doesn’t, you’re going to hit a wall before you get to the scale at which you can solve the really important problems that motivate us.”
“We have actually worked out a path to a million,” Nayak said, referring to his Microsoft technical fellow counterpart Matthias Troyer. As of today, the Majorana 1 chip can hold eight topological qubits, the first step towards its goal of one million.
Another plus of the “error-resistant” and “stable” chip is its size; besides fitting inside the palm of one’s hand, Majorana 1 happens to fit perfectly inside a quantum computer. It can be deployed in a typical-sized data center to harness its ultra-fast computing ability – in this case, a Microsoft Azure data center, the tech behemoth said.
Evidence of the chip's technical abilities is said to be backed up in a scientific paper published on Wednesday by the academic journal Nature to coincide with the reveal.
“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, said Markus Pflitsch, founder and CEO of Terra Quantum, a leading quantum tech company specializing in algorithms, hybrid hardware, and secure quantum communications.
Pflitsch believes that Microsoft’s announcement only “reinforces our assessment that fault-tolerant quantum hardware is closer than many business leaders think.”
From a broader perspective, Pflitsch also backs up Microsoft’s stance “that a hybrid solution of AI, HPC [high-performance computing] and quantum will deliver commercial value before the arrival of universal, fault-tolerant quantum systems.
“That's why we continue to focus on hybrid hardware architectures that combine the strengths of classical and quantum computing to provide a competitive edge now,” Pflitsch said.
Last June, in collaboration with Quantinuum and Atom Computing, Microsoft announced the industry’s first reliable quantum computer in yet another first.
Earlier this year, Nvidia CEO Jensen Huang surmised that the technology was two decades away from overtaking his company's chips, which are currently used in today’s AI applications.
Soon after Huang’s comments, Google introduced its own new quantum chip and predicted that commercial quantum computing applications were only five years away. Meanwhile, IBM has picked 2033 as the year large-scale quantum computers will come online.
Microsoft's Majorana 1 has been in the works for nearly two decades and relies on a subatomic particle called the Majorana fermion, whose existence was first theorized in the 1930s, according to Reuters.
Fabricated at Microsoft labs in Washington state and Denmark, Majorana 1 is expected to revolutionize fields such as medicine, materials science, and our understanding of the natural world, Microsoft said in its explanatory video.
“It’s one thing to discover a new state of matter. It’s another to take advantage of it to rethink quantum computing at scale,” Nayak said.
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