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Microsoft unveils Majorana 1 quantum processor

azure.microsoft.com

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Re: Microsoft unveils Majorana 1 quantum processor

#121

Post by tmvphil »

paulirwin wrote: post #27

Can someone check my understanding: does this mean they have eight logical qubits on the chip? It appears that way from the graphic where it zooms into each logical qubit, although it only shows two there. If that is true, it sounds like having a plan to scale to millions of logical qubits on a chip is even more impressive.

They have no qubits at all, "logical" or not. yet. They plan to make millions. It is substantially easier to release a plan for millions of qubits than it is to make even one.

Re: Microsoft unveils Majorana 1 quantum processor

#122

Post by cubefox »

kjellsbells wrote: post #49
hdjjhhvvhga wrote: post #25

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>> I need HN's classic pessimism to know if this is something to be excited about. Please chime in! > While all players are selling a dream right now, this announcement is even more farcical. Thanks a lot, I didn't get disappointed.

Another take, to feed your cynicism: MSFT need money to keep investing in this sort of science. By posting announcements like this they hope to become the obvious place for investors interested in quantum to park their money. Stock price goes brrr, MSFT wins. More cynical still: what exactly has the Strategic Missions and Technologies unit achieved in the last few years? Burned a few billion on Azure for Operators, a…

> MSFT need money to keep investing in this sort of science

Microsoft is making absurd amounts of money from Azure and Office (Microsoft 365) subscriptions. Any quantum computing investment is a drop in the bucket for this company.

Re: Microsoft unveils Majorana 1 quantum processor

#123

Post by kmeisthax »

cgcrob wrote: post #38

Are these actually even useful yet? Genuine question. I never managed to solicit and answer, only long explanations which seemed to have an answer of yes and no at the same time depending on who you observe.

They can fundamentally break most asymmetric encryption, which is a good thing iff you want to do things that require forging signatures. Things like jailbreaks Apple can't patch, decryption tools that can break all E2E encryption, being able to easily steal your neighbor's Facebook login at the coffee shop...

Come to think of it, maybe we shouldn't invent quantum computers[0].

[0] Yes, even with the upside of permanently jailbreakable iPhones.

Re: Microsoft unveils Majorana 1 quantum processor

#124

Post by mrguyorama »

radioactivist wrote: post #101
Panoramix wrote: post #85

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

Reading the PR release that accompanies a scientific paper is a negative information activity. Anything meaningful that can actually be supported by the science done is already in the paper and if you can understand the paper, it will be self evident how you should feel about it.

Any sentence in the press release that isn't VERBATIM in the paper should be viewed as marketing, and unsupported by the science, and there is zero incentive NOT to lie in the PR, especially since the ones writing it are rarely even knowledgeable in the subject matter.

Re: Microsoft unveils Majorana 1 quantum processor

#126

Post by kalastor »

pankajdoharey wrote: post #67
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

Based on what i read it seems a lot of algorithmic work is required to even make them useful. New algorithms have to be discovered and still they will only solve only a special class of problems. They cant do classical computing so your NVIDIA GPU probably may never be replaced by a Quantum GPU.

I wouldn't worry too much about finding new algorithms. The sheer power of QC parallelism will attract enough talent to convert any useful classical algorithm to QC.

It's a bit similar to the invention of fast Fourier transform (was reinvented several times...), O(n log n) is so much better than O(n*2) that many problems in science and technology use FFT somewhere in their pipeline, just because it's so powerful, even if unrelated to signal processing. For example, multiplication of very large numbers use FFT (?!).

Re: Microsoft unveils Majorana 1 quantum processor

#127

Post by fc417fc802 »

moffkalast wrote: post #76
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

Hopefully not, besides quantum physics simulations the only problems they solve are the ones that should remain unsolved if we're to trust the integrity of existing systems. As soon as the first practical quantum computer is made available, so much recorded TLS encrypted data is gonna get turned into plain text, probably destroying millions of people's lives. I hope everyone working in quantum research is aware of wh…

This got me wondering how much of Tor, i2p, etc the NSA has archived. Or privacy coins like XMR.

I'm also curious. If you don't capture the key exchange but instead only a piece of cypher text. Is there a lower limit to the sample size required to attack the key? It feels like there must be.

Re: Microsoft unveils Majorana 1 quantum processor

#128

Post by kjellsbells »

ein0p wrote: post #98

Nadella is currently claiming on X that this opens up a "direct path to 1 million qubits". Based on my priors, I put the probability of this statement being horseshit at 99.9%. Could someone knowledgeable make it 100%?

That word "direct" is doing a lot of heavy lifting.

It makes the statement unfalsifiable: no matter how long it takes, how twisty the path turns out to be, it will always be a direct path, because what is a path after all if not direct?

He didnt say shortest path, quickest path, or any other qualifier that would set visions of nodes and edges and Graph 101 dancing in our nerdy little heads. It's marketing. Good marketing. I hope they can deliver on it.

Re: Microsoft unveils Majorana 1 quantum processor

#130

Post by miztrskinnr »

dcist wrote: post #20
miztrskinnr wrote: post #9

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This isn’t a forum of smart people. It’s a forum of asocial tech workers who write in authoritative prose but are just normal people at home staring blankly at a blue glow of a mental bug zapper Quantum is just the next form of sampling the electromagnetic field. It’ll provide mesmerizing computational properties but not rewrite human DNA or beam our consciousness to another galaxy; it’ll fill up RAM and disk really…

Now THIS is the sort of nihilistic outlook that keeps me coming back for a hit of HN.

Not saying wild things aren’t possible; designer drug glands grafted on and such would be banger and would alter human lived experience.

Another box measuring oscillations of fundamental forces will not.

Religious fear of “corrupting human nature” keeps smart people scaffolding symbolic logic in machines versus experimenting with weird science. Live, eat, mate, help line go up relative to some musty people’s political ledger, and die is all we’re allowed!

I want drug glands, regenerative tissue, and mini kaiju monstrosities grown in labs… as pets!

What’s actually up in 2025?…

“Behold! Nintendo Switch 2!”

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