Microsoft And Quantinuum Makit Close To Quantum Computer Commercialization

Microsoft and Quantinuum achieved important steps in making quantum computers a commercial product and making them more reliable. (photo: x @microsoft)

JAKARTA - Microsoft and Quantinuum announced on Wednesday March 3 that they have reached an important step in making quantum computers a commercial product and making them more reliable.

The move is the latest in a race to perfect quantum computing where tech companies like Microsoft, Alphabet's Google, and IBM compete with competitors and countries to create machines that use quantum mechanics to promise speeds much faster than conventional silicon-based computers.

The quantum machine can make millions of years of scientific calculations with today's classic computers, going faster.

However, basic units of quantum computers - called "qubits" - are fast but sensitive, resulting in data errors if such quantum computers are slightly disrupted. To solve these problems, quantum researchers often build more physical qubits than needed and use error-correcting techniques to generate fewer but reliable and useful qubit numbers.

Microsoft and Quantinuum said they had made breakthroughs in such fields. Microsoft implemented an error correction algorithm it wrote to the physical qubit Quantinuum, resulting in about four reliably reliable qubits of 30 physical qubits.

Jason Zander, Microsoft's executive vice president for strategic missions and technologies, said the company believed it was the best ratio of a reliable qubit of a quantum chip ever demonstrated.

"We run more than 14,000 individual experiments without a single mistake. That's up to 800 times better than recorded," said Zander, quoted by VOI from Reuters.

Microsoft said it plans to release this technology to its cloud computing customers in the coming months.

Quantum researchers, both in Quantinuum and its competitors, often cited a reliable number of about 100 qubits as the number needed to beat conventional supercomputers. Neither Microsoft nor Quantinuum last Wednesday revealed how many more years they needed to use this new technique to achieve reliable 100 qubits.

"The current view is that we have cut at least two years from that time, if not more," said Ilyas Khan, chief product of Quantinuum.