{"id":1001537,"date":"2026-06-03T00:20:16","date_gmt":"2026-06-03T00:20:16","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/1001537\/"},"modified":"2026-06-03T00:20:16","modified_gmt":"2026-06-03T00:20:16","slug":"microsofts-next-gen-quantum-chip-cuts-timeline-to-useful-quantum-computing","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/1001537\/","title":{"rendered":"Microsoft\u2019s next-gen quantum chip cuts timeline to useful quantum computing"},"content":{"rendered":"<p class=\"duet--article--dangerously-set-cms-markup duet--article--standard-paragraph _1044qizi _18mzr4b1 _18mzr4b0 _19wv7tc1\">Microsoft claimed last year that it had made a <a href=\"https:\/\/www.theverge.com\/news\/614205\/microsoft-quantum-computing-majorana-1-processor\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\">key breakthrough in quantum computing<\/a> with Majorana 1, the company\u2019s first quantum processor. While physicists were <a href=\"https:\/\/www.theverge.com\/tech\/633248\/beyond-the-hype-of-quantum-computers\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\">immediately skeptical<\/a> of Microsoft\u2019s claims, the software giant is announcing Majorana 2 today, the next generation of its topological quantum chip.<\/p>\n<p class=\"duet--article--dangerously-set-cms-markup duet--article--standard-paragraph _1044qizi _18mzr4b1 _18mzr4b0 _19wv7tc1\">Majorana 2 contains qubits, a unit of information in quantum computing much like the binary bits that computers use today, that are 1,000 times more reliable, according to Microsoft. It\u2019s a milestone that helps make quantum computing more reliable, thanks to the use of a new material stack and some help from Microsoft Discovery\u2019s agentic AI.<\/p>\n<p class=\"duet--article--dangerously-set-cms-markup duet--article--standard-paragraph _1044qizi _18mzr4b1 _18mzr4b0 _19wv7tc1\">\u201cTo create Majorana 2, the Microsoft Quantum team improved Majorana 1\u2019s material stack to create a more<br \/>stable topological phase,\u201d explains Chetan Nayak, Microsoft technical fellow and corporate vice president of quantum hardware. \u201cMajorana 2 replaces Majorana 1\u2019s superconductor, aluminum, with lead, and also updates the semiconductor active region to a combination of indium arsenide and indium arsenide antimonide.\u201d<\/p>\n<p class=\"duet--article--dangerously-set-cms-markup duet--article--standard-paragraph _1044qizi _18mzr4b1 _18mzr4b0 _19wv7tc1\">The improved materials mean better performance of qubits, according to Microsoft. \u201cIn the aluminum-based Majorana 1, qubit lifetimes were between one and 12 milliseconds, whereas in Majorana 2, the lifetimes exceed 20 seconds, representing more than 1,000x improvement in stability,\u201d says Nayak. Some qubit lifetimes now exceed a minute, enough to convince Microsoft that it has made enough significant progress to promise useful quantum computing much sooner.<\/p>\n<p class=\"duet--article--dangerously-set-cms-markup duet--article--standard-paragraph _1044qizi _18mzr4b1 _18mzr4b0 _19wv7tc1\">\u201cBased on this rapid progress, we are accelerating our roadmap to a scalable, practical quantum computer,\u201d says Nayak. \u201cWe have cut our timeline in half and now aim to reach this target by 2029.\u201d Microsoft is working toward building a fault-tolerant prototype quantum computer based on topological qubits, with an aim of quantum computing solving some of the world\u2019s most difficult problems.<\/p>\n<p class=\"duet--article--dangerously-set-cms-markup duet--article--standard-paragraph _1044qizi _18mzr4b1 _18mzr4b0 _19wv7tc1\">Microsoft is now releasing Discovery, the platform that helped improve its Majorana chips, to its customers today. Microsoft Discovery is designed to help apply agentic workflows to research and development programs. A local app version of Microsoft Discovery is now <a href=\"https:\/\/github.com\/microsoft\/discovery\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\">available on GitHub<\/a>, and researchers can use a GitHub Copilot account to access it.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Microsoft claimed last year that it had made a key breakthrough in quantum computing with Majorana 1, the&hellip;\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":1001538,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":"","_share_on_mastodon":"0"},"categories":[6],"tags":[51,507,45128,12,70,326,16,15],"class_list":["post-1001537","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-business","tag-business","tag-microsoft","tag-microsoft-build","tag-news","tag-science","tag-tech","tag-uk","tag-united-kingdom"],"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/pubeurope.com\/@uk\/116683317398489701","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1001537","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1001537"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1001537\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/1001538"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1001537"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1001537"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1001537"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}