Recently this February, Microsoft released statements, claiming that they have made the world’s first topological core powered quantum chip. While this sounds mundane, this technological advance theoretically could solve issues that would take months, years or even decades, in just seconds.
Microsoft is currently on track to build a quantum chip, which they are calling Majorana 1, that would contain a million qubits, which is the basic unit of information used to encode data, on a single chip.
One way to explain quantum computing is to think of a computer and to realize it uses binary code of 0’s and 1’s in a sequence of one number at a time, such as 01010011… But, with quantum computing, it can use 0’s and 1’s at the same time, on top of each other.
Essentially, a regular computer is like a mouse in a maze; it goes through the maze, potentially hitting dead ends and back-tracking until it reaches the end. However, with quantum computing, imagine that you start a mouse at the beginning of the maze, and it can go through the walls and in every direction all at once until it reaches the end. In essence, it is much quicker than a regular computer.
The topoconductor, or the topological superconductor, is a new state of matter. It is not a gas, liquid or solid; it is a topological state, with topology meaning the properties of shapes that remain the same even when they’re stretched, bent, or twisted, without breaking or gluing parts together.
Microsoft has managed to stabilize and to control this matter, being stored in -273.05°C, which is near absolute zero, and some say to be colder than space. This control gave them the ability to produce this chip. Up until this point, this state of matter has only been theorized. Although, it has yet to be fully tested, as it is too far advanced for current technology.
But, with continued progress with this technology, Microsoft says they can pair this with artificial intelligence and use it to solve world problems.
27aarias@usd489.com
