Microsoft Make Huge ‘Breakthrough’ in Quantum Computing. Here’s Everything You Need to Know.

Microsoft has achieved a significant advancement in quantum computing, with plans to commercialize the technology.

The company, along with its partner Atom Computing, aims to leverage a qubit-virtualization system that, according to Microsoft and Quantinuum, has set a new benchmark in the creation of logical qubits.

During the Quantum World Congress on Tuesday, Microsoft revealed that it, in collaboration with Quantinuum, had broken a record for the creation of logical qubits. Furthermore, the tech giant announced its work with Atom Computing to develop what they describe as the world’s most powerful quantum machine.

Jason Zander, executive vice president of strategic missions and technologies at Microsoft, explained the partnership: “Through this collaboration, we’re bringing a new generation of reliable quantum hardware to customers by integrating and advancing Atom Computing’s neutral atom hardware into our Azure Quantum compute platform.” He also noted that the integration of this hardware with Azure Quantum Elements provides a comprehensive toolset for scientific discovery, aiming to achieve quantum advantage.

Qubits, or quantum bits, represent the fundamental units of information in quantum computing. Unlike traditional computing bits, which can be either 0 or 1, qubits can exist in a superposition of states, enabling quantum algorithms to solve problems much faster than conventional systems. Logical qubits, as opposed to physical ones, are a higher-level construct used in fault-tolerant quantum systems to counteract errors and noise.

Zander addressed the limitations of current Noisy Intermediate-Scale Quantum (NISQ) machines, highlighting that physical qubits are still too prone to noise and errors for practical, real-world applications. To overcome this, the company is focusing on using logical qubits, which aggregate multiple physical qubits to protect against noise and ensure coherence in long computations.

In April, Microsoft and Quantinuum showcased logical qubits with an error rate 800 times lower than that of physical qubits. On Tuesday, Zander announced that their improved qubit virtualization system successfully created and entangled 12 reliable logical qubits on Quantinuum’s 56-physical-qubit H2 machine, marking a new record in the field.

To demonstrate how these enhancements in the Azure Quantum platform can solve practical challenges, the two companies ran the first-ever end-to-end chemistry simulation that combined reliable logical quantum computing with high-performance cloud computing (HPC) and artificial intelligence. This simulation was able to precisely predict the ground state energy for a specific catalyst problem, a crucial achievement in quantum science.

“This demonstration marked a critical step toward ushering in a new generation of hybrid applications that will become increasingly impactful as quantum technologies scale,” Zander commented, emphasizing the potential of quantum and AI to drive scientific discoveries.

Looking forward, Microsoft plans to combine its qubit-virtualization system with Atom Computing’s neutral-atom technology to build a commercial quantum machine. Zander asserted that this machine would be the most powerful to date, merging Atom’s hardware with Azure Elements and Copilot.

“Our goal is to empower governments and organizations to tackle scientifically and commercially relevant problems with today’s most advanced computational solutions,” Zander said. He added that Microsoft aims to cultivate a quantum-ready ecosystem by providing the tools needed for the commercial adoption of quantum technology, which will also create new job opportunities in the field.