Microsoft unveils new Quantum Chip Majorana 1

Context: Recently, Microsoft has unveiled a new quantum chip called Majorana 1. Microsoft has claimed to have found a novel way to create qubits (quantum bits) that produces more stable and error-resistant qubits, than those produced by existing methods.

Relevance of the Topic: Prelims: Key facts about Quantum Chip Majorana 1; Quantum computers. 

Quantum Chip Majorana 1: 

• Material Innovation:
  • The chip is built using indium arsenide (a type of semiconductor) and part aluminum (a superconductor at low temperatures). 
  • When cooled to near absolute zero (−273.15 °C) and tuned with magnetic fields, this material exhibits topological superconductivity, leading to the emergence of Majorana zero modes. Two Majorana zero modes encode (act as) a single topological qubit in this chip. 
• Majorana 1 chip contains eight qubits with the potential to scale to 1 million qubits on a single chip. 
• Superiority:
  • The chip utilises topological qubits to be more stable and scalable, than existing quantum computers developed by Google and IBM. 
  • The chip's design reduces error susceptibility, making it more reliable for practical applications.
• Its supposed fault-tolerant abilities come from the properties of an exotic subatomic particle called the Majorana fermion, which was first theorised in the 1930s.

Quantum Computing

• Quantum computers utilise the quantum mechanical properties of sub-atomic particles (smaller than an atom).
• One such property is superposition or the ability of a quantum particle to exist in multiple states at the same time. This gives quantum computers an exceptional edge over traditional computers.
  • In traditional computers, data is stored and processed through billions of small transistors that can each handle only one bit of information (0 or 1) at a time.
  • Quantum computers use qubits (electrons or other similar particles) to process data. Superposition allows qubits to be in both 0 and 1 state at the same time. In fact, they can exist in every combination of 0 and 1 simultaneously.
• Interaction with other qubits allows for a kind of parallel processing that is not possible in a normal computer where data processing happens one step at a time (even though at lightning speeds).

Limitations of Quantum Computing:

• Maintaining the stability of qubits (Decoherence issue): 
  • Quantum behaviour of a particle collapses into normal behaviour the moment the system is observed or measured. This is because any act of measurement, or observation, is not possible without disturbing these extremely tiny systems. 
  • Even minor external disturbances, such as deviations in temperature or pressure, also collapses the system.
• Integrity of the outcome (Error correction challenge):  
  • Multiple states of a qubit lead to multiple outcomes, only one of which is desirable. Ensuring that the quantum computer selects the correct outcome (instead of millions of other possibilities) is a challenge.
  • Disturbances caused in any qubit can result in errors in calculations, and algorithms need to correct for these, which, in turn, require many more qubits. Hence, the more stable the qubits are, the fewer will be errors.

Significance (Why breakthrough by Microsoft is important):  

Microsoft has claimed that the qubits created through its novel process are more resilient, and significant in terms of scalability, error generation and error correction. 

• Resilient qubitsand their scalability will fast-track the development of a million-qubit system within a few years.
  • Quantum computers using other methods have barely managed to reach 1,000-qubit systems. 
  • For fully-functional efficient quantum computers, they need to operate a million or ten million qubit systems.
• Error-resistant qubits:
  • In existing quantum systems, roughly one million physical qubits are required to create a few thousand logical (error-corrected) qubits.  
  • The advanced qubits by Microsoft will lower the error rates, and thus increase the ratio of physical qubits to logical cubits. 
  • This would drastically reduce the number of qubits needed for robust computations, and further speed the scalability of quantum computers. 
•  Potential applications in various fields like drug discovery, energy optimisation, material science etc.