Anyone who has sat in a third class of science knows that there are three primary material situations: solid, liquid and gas.
Microsoft is now saying that it has created a new situation in its attempt to create a powerful machine called a quantum computer, which could accelerate the growth of everyone, from batteries to medicines to artificial intelligence.
On Wednesday, Microsoft scientists said they had built what was known as “topological Qubit” based on this new phase of physical existence, which could be used to solve mathematical, scientific and technological problems.
With development, Microsoft increases the shares in what is going to be the next major technological competition, beyond today’s race above artificial intelligence. Scientists have chased the dream of a quantum computer – a machine that could take advantage of the strange and extremely powerful behavior of subatomic particles or very cold objects – since the 1980s.
The impulse heated in December, when Google presented an experimental quantum computer that took just five minutes to complete a calculation that most supercomputers could not complete in 10 years in septers – older than the age of the well -known universe.
Microsoft’s quantum technology could overcome the methods under development on Google. As part of its research, the company created multiple topological Qubits in a new type of computer chip that combines the benefits of semiconductor that classic computers apply to superconductors commonly used to build a quantum computer.
When such a chip cools to extremely low temperatures, it behaves in unusual and powerful ways that Microsoft believes it will allow it to solve the technological, mathematical and scientific problems that classic machines could never. Technology is not as unstable as other quantum technologies, the company said, making it easier to exploit its power.
Some are disputed whether Microsoft has achieved this milestone and many top academics have said quantum computers will not be fully implemented for decades. But Microsoft scientists said their methods would help them reach the finish line earlier.
“We consider this as something that is years away, not decades away,” said Chetan Nayak, a Microsoft technical partner who led the team that created technology.
Microsoft’s technology, which was analyzed in a research document published in the journal Science Journal Nature on Wednesday, adds a new impetus to a race that could reshape the technological landscape. In addition to accelerating progress in many technological and scientific areas, a quantum computer could be strong enough to break the encryption that protects national secrets.
Any progress has been set to have geopolitical consequences. Even when the United States is exploring quantum information technology, mainly through companies such as Microsoft and a wave of newly established businesses, the Chinese government has said it is investing $ 15.2 billion in technology. The European Union has committed $ 7.2 billion.
Quantum computing, based on decades of research in a kind of physics called Quantum Mechanics, is still an experimental technology. But after recent steps from Microsoft, Google and others, scientists are sure that technology will eventually meet its promise.
“Quantum computing is an exciting perspective for physics and world,” said Frank Wilczek, theoretical physicist at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology.
To understand quantum calculation, it helps to know how a traditional computer works. A smartphone, laptop or desktop computers is based on tiny semiconductor chips, which are materials that carry out electricity in some but not in all situations. These chips also store the processing numbers by adding them, multiplying them and so on. Perform these calculations by handling the “bits” of information. Each bit holds either 1 or 0.
A quantum computer works differently. A quantum bit, or qubit, is based on the strange behavior of subatomic particles or exotic materials that cool at extremely low temperatures.
When it is extremely small or extremely cold, a single object can behave like two separate objects at the same time. By utilizing this behavior, scientists can build a Qubit that holds a combination of 1 and 0. This means that two Qubits can hold four values ​​at the same time. And as the number of Qubits increases, a quantum computer becomes exponentially more powerful.
Companies use a variety of techniques to manufacture these machines. In the United States, most, including Google, build Qubits using superconductors, which are materials that carry out electricity without losing the energy they transmit. They create these super -cooling metals at extremely low temperatures.
Microsoft has bet on an approach that few others receive: combining semiconductors with superconductors. The Basic Authority – along with the name Topological Qubit – was first proposed in 1997 by Alexei Kitaev, a Russian American natural.
The company began working on this unusual project in the early 2000s, when many researchers did not believe that technology was possible. It is Microsoft’s longest research program.
“This is something that all three CEOs of this company have bet,” Satya Nadella, Microsoft’s chief executive, said in an interview. (The company’s previous chief executives were Bill Gates, a founder, and Steve Ballmer, who ran Microsoft in the early 2000s.)
The company now created a single device that is part of the Arsenium Indian (a semiconductor type) and part of aluminum (superconductor at low temperatures). When cooling to about 400 degrees below zero, it has a kind of foreign behavior that can make quantum computers strong.
Philip Kim, a professor of physics at Harvard, said Microsoft’s new creation was important because topological Qubits could accelerate the development of quantum computers. “If everything works, Microsoft’s research could be revolutionary,” he said.
But Jason Alicea, a professor of theoretical physics at the California Institute of Technology, questioned whether the company had really built a topological Qubit, saying that quantum systems is often difficult to prove.
“A topological Qubit is in principle, and people agree to be a remarkable goal,” said Dr. Alicea. “But you must verify that a device behaves in all the magical ways the theory provides. Otherwise, reality may prove to be less rosy for quantum computing. Fortunately, Microsoft is now installed to try.”
Microsoft said it had only built eight topological Qubits and that they were not yet able to execute calculations that would change the nature of the calculation. But the company’s researchers see this one step towards building something much more powerful.
At the moment, technology is still making too many mistakes to be really useful, though scientists are developing ways to reduce mistakes.
Last year, Google showed that as it increased the number of Qubits, it could exponentially reduce the number of errors through complex mathematical techniques.
Correction of bugs will be less complicated and more effective if Microsoft can refine its topological Qubits, many scientists said.
While a Qubit can keep multiple prices at the same time, it is burdened by an inherent problem. When the researchers try to read the information stored in a Qubit, “decoeres” and collapses into a classic piece that holds only one value: one 1 or 0.
This means that if one tries to read a Qubit, he loses his basic power. So scientists have to overcome a meaningful problem: How do you create a computer if you break whenever you use it?
Google error correction methods are a way to deal with this issue. Microsoft believes that it can solve the problem faster because topological Qubits behave differently and theoretically less likely to collapse when someone reads the information it saves.
“It makes a very good Qubit,” said Dr. Nayak.
