MICROSOFT ACHIEVED A MAJOR MILESTONE IN THE DEVELOPMENT OF QUANTUM SUPERCOMPUTER
MICROSOFT ACHIEVED A MAJOR MILESTONE IN THE DEVELOPMENT OF QUANTUM SUPERCOMPUTER
Microsoft’s ongoing efforts to develop a practical quantum computer have taken another significant step forward with the announcement of new advances to Azure Quantum aimed at accelerating scientific discovery. These advances include Azure Quantum Elements, Copilot in Azure Quantum, and Microsoft’s roadmap to a quantum supercomputer.
Azure Quantum Elements integrates the latest breakthroughs in high-performance computing, artificial intelligence, and quantum computing to accelerate scientific discovery. With Azure Quantum Elements, researchers can make advances in chemistry and materials science with unprecedented scale, speed, and accuracy. Scientists can use it to explore millions of potential configurations in complex reactions, dramatically increase the search space for new materials, and speed up chemistry simulations by up to 500,000 times.
Copilot in Azure Quantum helps scientists use natural language to reason through complex chemistry and materials science problems. It generates underlying calculations and simulations, queries and visualizes data, and provides guided answers to complicated concepts. Copilot in Azure Quantum is designed to transform and accelerate scientific discovery and to help people learn about quantum computing and write code for today’s quantum computers.
Microsoft’s roadmap to a quantum supercomputer is based on three implementation levels: Foundational, Resilient, and Scale. To reach Scale, a fundamental physics breakthrough is required. Microsoft has achieved this breakthrough by creating and controlling Majorana quasiparticles, which means it has achieved the first milestone towards a quantum supercomputer. With this achievement, Microsoft is well on its way to engineering a new hardware-protected qubit and progressing towards a Resilient Level and then Scale.
The ultimate goal of quantum computing is to solve problems that are intractable on a classical computer and to scale to solve the most complex problems facing our world. To do this, quantum supercomputers must be both performant and reliable. Microsoft is measuring quantum supercomputer performance using the metric of reliable Quantum Operations Per Second (rQOPS), which measures how many reliable operations can be executed in one second.
With the advent of any innovative technology, there are risks that need to be planned for and mitigated. Microsoft’s AI principles guide it in developing new services like Azure Quantum Elements and engineering its first quantum supercomputer. Microsoft is also preparing for a quantum-safe future and has a comprehensive plan to ensure all its services remain secure.
