Microsoft’s Claims of Quantum Computing Advancement
Microsoft has announced a potential breakthrough in quantum computing, a field with the potential to revolutionize technology. The company says it has developed a new chip designed to dramatically speed up the creation of useful quantum computers, potentially shrinking the development timeline from decades to just a few years. This advance, if proven, could be a major development in both quantum computing and physics.
The Promise of Quantum Computing
Quantum computers differ significantly from today’s computers in their function and design, using special properties of tiny particles like electrons. A key property is superposition, where a quantum particle can exist in multiple states simultaneously. This allows quantum computers to perform calculations more powerfully than conventional computers.
Traditional computers use transistors to handle bits of information, which can be either 0 or 1. Quantum computers, however, can utilize the superposition in qubits, allowing them to be in both 0 and 1 states simultaneously. This results in a new form of parallel processing, offering capabilities not available in standard computers, where data is processed step-by-step.
Challenges in Quantum Computing
Quantum computing faces significant obstacles. The quantum behavior of a particle is disrupted the moment it’s observed, and any outside disturbance, such as temperature or pressure changes, can collapse the system. Maintaining qubit stability is a major hurdle. The multiple states also lead to multiple potential outcomes, only one of which is correct. Getting the quantum computer to consistently produce the correct output is also an enormous challenge. Errors occur when a qubit is disturbed during calculations, and correcting these errors requires even more qubits.
Microsoft’s Novel Approach
Microsoft’s new technology offers advantages in terms of scalability, error generation, and error correction. The company claims this opens the door for the creation of systems with a million qubits relatively quickly. Existing platforms using other methods have struggled to reach even 1,000 qubits. Quantum computers need to effectively control and operate multiple millions of qubits to handle real-world problems.
Arindam Ghosh, a professor at the Indian Institute of Science, Bengaluru, told The Indian Express, “One million physical qubits would roughly scale down to about a few thousand (error-corrected) logical qubits in the existing systems because of the need for error correction.”
Ghosh also noted that “If what Microsoft is claiming is correct, and the quality of qubits is indeed superior, then the errors are expected to be smaller, and this ratio of physical to logical cubits would be much higher. This would significantly move the needle in the development of quantum computers.”
He added that the skepticism around the announcement is understandable, given that “Scientists have been trying to create this new physical state for a long time but have not succeeded. Any big breakthrough does invite greater scrutiny, and that is what seems to be happening. There is nothing surprising about this.”
