Everyone who has been a third -class science class knows that there are three primary states of matter: fixed, liquid and gas.
Microsoft now says that it has created a new state of matter in his search to make a powerful machine, called a quantum computer, who can accelerate the development of everything, from batteries to medicines to artificial intelligence.
On Wednesday, the Microsoft scientists said they had built what is known as a “topological quubit” based on this new phase of physical existence, which could be used to solve mathematical, scientific and technological problems.
With the development, Microsoft increases the commitment in what the next big technological competition is, beyond the race of today about artificial intelligence. Scientists have chased the dream of a quantum computer – a machine that could use the strange and extremely powerful behavior of subatomical particles or very cold objects – since the 1980s.
The Push warmed up in December when Google unveiled an experimental quantum computer that only needed five minutes to complete a calculation that most supercomputers could not end in 10 Septillion for years – longer than the age of the well -known universe.
Microsoft quantum technology can jump the development methods at Google. As part of his research, the company has built several topological qubits in a new type of computer chip that combines the strengths of the semiconductors that set up classic computers with the super conductors who are usually used to build a quantum computer.
When such a chip is cooled to extremely low temperatures, it behaves on unusual and powerful ways that Microsoft thinks can solve technological, mathematical and scientific problems that classic machines can never. The technology is not as fleeting as other quantum technologies, the company said, making it easier to use its strength.
Some wonder if Microsoft has reached this milestone, and many leading academics said that quantum computers would not have been fully realized for decades. But the scientists from Microsoft said their methods would help them reach the finish line earlier.
“We see this as something that has been gone for years, not for decades,” said Chetan Nayak, a technical guy from Microsoft who led the team that built the technology.
The technology of Microsoft, which was detailed in a research paper that was published in the Science Journal Nature on Wednesday, adds new impulse to a race that can reform the technological landscape. In addition to accelerating progress on many technological and scientific areas, a quantum computer can be powerful enough to break the coding that protects national secrets.
Any claims will have geopolitical implications. Even while the United States Quantum Computing mainly studies through companies such as Microsoft and a Gulf of Start-Up, the Chinese government has said that it is investing $ 15.2 billion in technology. The European Union has committed $ 7.2 billion.
Quantum Computing, which builds on decades of research into a kind of physics called Quantum Mechanics, is still an experimental technology. But after recent steps from Microsoft, Google and others, scientists are convinced that technology will eventually live up to its promise.
“Quantum Computing is an exciting prospect for physics, and for the world,” said Frank Wilczek, a theoretical physicist at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology.
To understand Kwantum Computing, it helps to know how a traditional computer works. A smartphone, laptop or desktop PC is based on small chips made from semiconductors, those materials that are electricity in some but not all situations. These chips hit and process numbers, add them, multiply them and so on. They perform these calculations by manipulating “pieces” of information. Each bit holds a 1 or a 0.
A quantum computer works differently. A quantum bit or quubit relies on the curious behavior of subatomical particles or exotic materials that are cooled to extremely low temperatures.
If it is extremely small or extremely cold, a single object can simultaneously behave like two separate objects. By using that behavior, scientists can build a quubit that contains a combination of 1 and 0. This means that two Qubits can contain four values at the same time. And as the number of qubits grows, a quantum computer becomes more exponentially more powerful.
Companies use different techniques to build these machines. In the United States, most, including Google, build quubits with the help of super conductors, those materials that lead electricity without losing the energy they transfer. They create these super conductors by cooling metals to extremely low temperatures.
Microsoft has bet on an approach that few others follow: combining semiconductors with super conductors. The basic principle – together with the name Topological Qubit – was first presented in 1997 by Alexei Kitaev, a Russian American physicist.
The company started working on this unusual project in the early 2000s, when many researchers did not think that such technology was possible. It is the longest running research project from Microsoft.
“This is something that all three CEOs of this company have bet,” said Satya Nadella, Chief Executive of Microsoft, in an interview. (The previous CEOs of the company were Bill Gates, a founder, and Steve Ballmer, who ran Microsoft in the early 2000s.)
The company has now made a single device that is partly indium arsenide (a type semiconductor) and partly aluminum (a super conductor at low temperatures). When it is cooled to around 400 degrees below zero, it shows a kind of extraterrestrial behavior that makes quantum computers possible.
Philip Kim, Professor of Physics at Harvard, said that the new creation of Microsoft was considerable because topological qubits could accelerate the development of quantum computers. “If everything works, Microsoft's research can be revolutionary,” he said.
But Jason Alicea, a professor in theoretical physics at the California Institute of Technology, wondered if the company had actually built a topological quubit, and said that the behavior of quantum systems is often difficult to prove.
“A topological quubit is in principle possible and people agree that it is a valuable goal,” Dr. Alicea. “However, you have to verify that a device behaves in all magical ways that predicts the theory; Otherwise the reality can prove to be less rosy for Quantum Computing. Fortunately, Microsoft is now set to try it. “
Microsoft said it had only built eight topological quubits, and that they were not yet able to perform calculations that would change the nature of computer use. But the researchers of the company see this as a step in the direction of building something much more powerful.
For now, technology still makes too many mistakes to be really useful, although scientists develop ways to reduce errors.
Last year, Google showed that as it increased the number of quubits, it could reduce the number of errors exponentially due to complex mathematical techniques.
Error correction will be less complex and more efficient if Microsoft can perfect the topological qubits, many scientists said.
Although a quubit can contain multiple values at the same time, it is loaded by an inherent problem. When researchers try to read the information stored in a Qubit, “Decohert” and collapse it in a classic bit that contains only one value: a 1 or a 0.
This means that if someone tries to read a quubit, it loses his basic power. So scientists must overcome an essential problem: how do you build a computer if you break when you use it?
Google's error correction methods are a way to tackle this problem. Microsoft believes that it can solve the problem faster, because topological qubits behave differently and theoretically have less chance of collapsing when someone reads the information he stores.
“It provides a really good Qubit,” said Dr. Nayak.
