Microsoft Creates Chip It Says Shows Quantum Computers Are ‘Years, Not Decades’ Away

Microsoft's Majorana 1 quantum computing chip is pictured in this undated handout photo obtained by Reuters on February 19, 2025. (Courtesy of Microsoft/Handout via Reuters)
Microsoft's Majorana 1 quantum computing chip is pictured in this undated handout photo obtained by Reuters on February 19, 2025. (Courtesy of Microsoft/Handout via Reuters)
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Microsoft Creates Chip It Says Shows Quantum Computers Are ‘Years, Not Decades’ Away

Microsoft's Majorana 1 quantum computing chip is pictured in this undated handout photo obtained by Reuters on February 19, 2025. (Courtesy of Microsoft/Handout via Reuters)
Microsoft's Majorana 1 quantum computing chip is pictured in this undated handout photo obtained by Reuters on February 19, 2025. (Courtesy of Microsoft/Handout via Reuters)

Microsoft on Wednesday unveiled a new chip that it said showed quantum computing is "years, not decades" away, joining Google and IBM in predicting that a fundamental change in computing technology is much closer than recently believed.

Quantum computing holds the promise of carrying out calculations that would take today's systems millions of years and could unlock discoveries in medicine, chemistry and many other fields where near-infinite seas of possible combinations of molecules confound classical computers.

Quantum computers also hold the danger of upending today's cybersecurity systems, where most encryption relies on the assumption that it would take too long to brute force gain access.

The biggest challenge of quantum computers is that a fundamental building block called a qubit, which is similar to a bit in classical computing, is incredibly fast but also extremely difficult to control and prone to errors.

Microsoft said the Majorana 1 chip it has developed is less prone to those errors than rivals and provided as evidence a scientific paper set to be published in academic journal Nature.

When useful quantum computers will arrive has become a topic of debate in the upper echelons of the tech industry. Nvidia CEO Jensen Huang said last month that the technology was two decades away from overtaking his company's chips, the workhorses of artificial intelligence, reflecting broad skepticism.

Those remarks prompted Google, which last year showed off its own new quantum chip, to say that commercial quantum computing applications are only five years away. IBM has said large-scale quantum computers will be online by 2033.

Microsoft's Majorana 1 has been in the works for nearly two decades and relies on a subatomic particle called the Majorana fermion whose existence was first theorized in the 1930s. That particle has properties that make it less prone to the errors that plague quantum computers, but it has been hard for physicists to find and control.

Microsoft said it created the Majorana 1 chip with indium arsenide and aluminum. The device uses a superconducting nanowire to observe the particles and can be controlled with standard computing equipment.

The chip Microsoft revealed Wednesday has far fewer qubits than rival chips from Google and IBM, but Microsoft believes that far fewer of its Majorana-based qubits will be needed to make useful computers because the error rates are lower.

Microsoft did not give a timeline for when the chip would be scaled up to create quantum computers that can outstrip today's machines, but the company said in a blog post that point was "years, not decades" away.

Jason Zander, the Microsoft executive vice president who oversees the company's long-term strategic bets, described Majorana 1 as a "high risk, high reward" strategy.

The chip was fabricated at Microsoft labs in Washington state and Denmark.

"The hardest part has been solving the physics. There is no textbook for this, and we had to invent it," Zander said in an interview with Reuters. "We literally have invented the ability to go create this thing, atom by atom, layer by layer."

Philip Kim, a professor of physics at Harvard University who was not involved in Microsoft's research, said that Majorana fermions have been a hot topic among physicists for decades and called Microsoft's work an "exciting development" that put the company at the forefront of quantum research.

He also said that Microsoft's use of a hybrid between traditional semiconductors and exotic superconductors appeared to be a good route toward chips that can be scaled up into more powerful chips.

"Although there's no demonstration (of this scaling up) yet, what they are doing is really successful," Kim said.



Impostor Uses AI to Impersonate Rubio and Contact Foreign and US Officials

Secretary of State Marco Rubio attends a signing ceremony for a peace agreement between Rwanda and the Democratic Republic of the Congo at the State Department, June 27, 2025, in Washington. (AP Photo/Mark Schiefelbein, File)
Secretary of State Marco Rubio attends a signing ceremony for a peace agreement between Rwanda and the Democratic Republic of the Congo at the State Department, June 27, 2025, in Washington. (AP Photo/Mark Schiefelbein, File)
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Impostor Uses AI to Impersonate Rubio and Contact Foreign and US Officials

Secretary of State Marco Rubio attends a signing ceremony for a peace agreement between Rwanda and the Democratic Republic of the Congo at the State Department, June 27, 2025, in Washington. (AP Photo/Mark Schiefelbein, File)
Secretary of State Marco Rubio attends a signing ceremony for a peace agreement between Rwanda and the Democratic Republic of the Congo at the State Department, June 27, 2025, in Washington. (AP Photo/Mark Schiefelbein, File)

The State Department is warning US diplomats of attempts to impersonate Secretary of State Marco Rubio and possibly other officials using technology driven by artificial intelligence, according to two senior officials and a cable sent last week to all embassies and consulates.

The warning came after the department discovered that an impostor posing as Rubio had attempted to reach out to at least three foreign ministers, a US senator and a governor, according to the July 3 cable, which was first reported by The Washington Post.

The recipients of the scam messages, which were sent by text, Signal and voice mail, were not identified in the cable, a copy of which was shared with The Associated Press.

“The State Department is aware of this incident and is currently investigating the matter,” it said. “The department takes seriously its responsibility to safeguard its information and continuously takes steps to improve the department’s cybersecurity posture to prevent future incidents.”

It declined to comment further due to “security reasons” and the ongoing investigation.

One of the officials said the hoaxes had been unsuccessful and “not very sophisticated.” Nonetheless, the second official said the department deemed it “prudent” to advise all employees and foreign governments, particularly as efforts by foreign actors to compromise information security increase.

The officials were not authorized to discuss the matter publicly and spoke on condition of anonymity.

“There is no direct cyber threat to the department from this campaign, but information shared with a third party could be exposed if targeted individuals are compromised,” the cable said.

The FBI warned in a public service announcement this past spring of a “malicious text and voice messaging campaign” in which unidentified “malicious actors” have been impersonating senior US government officials.

The scheme, according to the FBI, has relied on text messages and AI-generated voice messages that purport to come from a senior US official and that aim to dupe other government officials as well as the victim’s associates and contacts.

It is the second high-level Trump administration official to face such AI-driven impersonation.

The government was investigating after elected officials, business executives and other prominent figures received messages from someone impersonating President Donald Trump’s chief of staff, Susie Wiles. Text messages and phone calls went out from someone who seemed to have gained access to the contacts in Wiles’ personal cellphone, The Wall Street Journal reported in May.

Some of those who received calls heard a voice that sounded like Wiles, which may have been generated by artificial intelligence, according to the newspaper. The messages and calls were not coming from Wiles’ number, the report said.