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Microsoft unveils Majorana 1 quantum processor

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Re: Microsoft unveils Majorana 1 quantum processor

#101

Post by radioactivist »

Panoramix wrote: post #85
radioactivist wrote: post #68

Whoever decided to make up the non-existent term "topoconductor" for the purposes of this article deserves to feel shame and embarassment (I say this as a condensed matter physicist).

I skimmed through the paper but nowhere did I find a demonstration of a Majorana qubit or a zero mode. The achievement was that they demonstrated a single-shot measurement. That's nice, but where's the qubit? what did I miss?

If you read the referee reports of the Nature paper (they are published alongside it) you'll see some referees echoing similar points.

Re: Microsoft unveils Majorana 1 quantum processor

#102

Post by radioactivist »

pinoy420 wrote: post #87
radioactivist wrote: post #80

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The ideas that underpin their device have been around for some time and aren't called by that name in the literature -- it appears to be entirely a branding exercise. A clear signal to me they don't seriously think it is a good name is that don't use the name outside this article (it appears nowhere in their Nature paper or anywhere else for that matter).

So what is it called then

It's a topological superconductor.

Re: Microsoft unveils Majorana 1 quantum processor

#103

Post by EvgeniyZh »

I'm doing theorical research in the topological quantum computing.

The idea behind topological quantum computing is to utilize quantum materials whose low-energy physics looks like an error correcting code. Since these systems are very large (macroscopic number of atoms), the error rates are (theoretically) very low, ie the qubit is fault tolerant by construction, without any additional error correction. In reality, we do not know how good these qubits will be at finite temperature, with real life noise, etc.

Moreover, these states do not just occur in nature by themselves, so their construction requires engineering, and this is what Microsoft tries to do.

Unfortunately, Majoranas in nanowires have some history of exaggerated claims and data manipulation. Sergey Frolov's [1] twitter, one of the people behind original Majorana zero bias peaks paper, was my go-to source for that, but it looks like he deleted it.

There were also some concerns about previous Microsoft paper [2,3] as well as the unusual decision to publish it without the details to reproduce it [4].

In my opinion, Microsoft does solid science, it's just the problem they're trying to solve is very hard and there are many ways in which the results can be misleading. I also think it is likely that they are making progress on Majoranas, but I would be surprised if they will be able to show quantum memory/single qubit gates soon.

[1] https://spinespresso.substack.com/p/has-there-been-enough-re...

[2] https://x.com/PhysicsHenry/status/1670184166674112514

[3] https://x.com/PhysicsHenry/status/1892268229139042336

[4] https://journals.aps.org/prb/abstract/10.1103/PhysRevB.107.2...

Re: Microsoft unveils Majorana 1 quantum processor

#104

Post by t-3 »

dev1ycan wrote: post #83

Microsoft really is a pathetic company rnd wise compared to what companies of similar size like Bell Labs were at their prime

Can any modern company be said to be of similar size to Bell Labs in it's prime? Bell Labs were only possible due to a monopoly supplying massive amounts of funding for about a century. MS had a few decades of domination in the consumer desktop OS space, but they always had competition and I would be very surprised if they had the kind of revenue streams that make this type of long-term investment possible - regular payments from nearly every household and business in the country, with easy ability to make predictions about current and future proceeds just by counting heads.

Re: Microsoft unveils Majorana 1 quantum processor

#105

Post by ernesth »

singularity2001 wrote: post #47
fooker wrote: post #39

Earlier quoted context omitted.

No. The long explanations boil down to this: quantum computers ( so far ) are better ( given a million qubits ) than classical computers at ( problems that are in disguise ) simulating quantum computers.

given a million qubits ... also last time I checked the record was 80 qubits and with every doubling of the cubits the complexity of the system and the impurities and the noise are increasing. so it's even questionable whether there will ever be useful quantum computers

> last time I checked the record was 80 qubits

It has progressed since: IBM Condor (demonstrated in december 2023) has 1121 qubits.

Re: Microsoft unveils Majorana 1 quantum processor

#108

Post by tclancy »

2dvisio wrote: post #107
DarmokJalad1701 wrote: post #30

My first scan parsed that as "Marijuana 1 quantum processor". Very high performance ...

This is the reason why is called like that. Is pronounced Ma-y-orana https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ettore_Majorana

>likely dying in or after 1959

That is how I would like my obit to read as well.

Re: Microsoft unveils Majorana 1 quantum processor

#110

Post by dwnw »

ernesth wrote: post #105
singularity2001 wrote: post #47

Earlier quoted context omitted.

given a million qubits ... also last time I checked the record was 80 qubits and with every doubling of the cubits the complexity of the system and the impurities and the noise are increasing. so it's even questionable whether there will ever be useful quantum computers

> last time I checked the record was 80 qubits It has progressed since: IBM Condor (demonstrated in december 2023) has 1121 qubits.

which is totally out of touch with the reality of making use of the extra qubits they just slapped on the chip to get a high number
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