The big tech news of the week was Microsoft’s reveal of Majorana 1, a quantum processor with superconducting circuits. Quantum computing isn’t a major revenue driver for the consulting sector because the technology is still in an early stage. Nevertheless, it’s being actively prioritized by the industry’s top players. Accenture, Deloitte and other multinational consultancies offer services that can help companies familiarize themselves with quantum computing. That makes the technology worth watching for consultants, particularly those who work on the IT side of the market.

Majorana 1 features eight qubits, which are the quantum computing equivalent of the transistors in a regular server. The chip can’t perform advanced computing tasks such as running scientific simulations. However, Microsoft believes it could help researchers build much larger quantum processors with a million qubits or more. Those processors, in turn, would not only be capable of performing advanced calculations but may also do so much faster than regular computers. 

The reason the tech industry hasn’t yet built a large-scale quantum computer is that qubits are highly prone to errors. Even the slightest external inference, such as a small increase in ambient temperature, can erase or modify a qubit’s data. Such errors make it impossible for quantum computers to complete calculations reliably. 

Microsoft’s new Majorana 1 processor keeps its data in miniature wires with a diameter of about one billionth of a meter. Those wires are powered by components with superconducting properties. Microsoft says this method of storing data makes Majorana 1 less likely to make processing errors than other quantum computers. In other words, the chip could help mitigate the main challenge that has made large-scale quantum computing impossible.

However, Microsoft’s breakthrough doesn’t mean IT consultancies should start buying quantum mechanics textbooks for their staff engineers. While Majorana 1 is less error-prone than earlier quantum systems, it also shares some of their limitations. The chip can only operate in temperatures approaching absolute zero, which makes running it costly and technically complicated. 

Then there’s the fact Majorana 1 is built using manufacturing technologies that aren’t widely used in semiconductor plants. That means the chip is likely far more expensive than even the most advanced server CPU.

Microsoft is actively working to address Majorana 1’s limitations. The company has signaled that it plans to build a larger, faster version of the chip with one million qubits. It’s not clear if such a processor would deliver the kind of massive processing speedups that researchers expect from tomorrow’s large-scale quantum computers. However, it could bring the IT industry much closer towards that goal.

text

text