Hacker News Board Hacker News, browsed like a classic message board
Live data from Hacker News

Microsoft unveils Majorana 1 quantum processor

azure.microsoft.com

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

41–50 of 200 posts

Re: Microsoft unveils Majorana 1 quantum processor

#41

Post by crystal_revenge »

erikig wrote: post #16

From a casual observer, it seemed like Microsoft's Majorana approach had hit a wall a few years back when there were retractions by the lead researchers. I wonder what's changed? https://cacm.acm.org/news/majorana-meltdown-jeopardizes-micr...

> I wonder what's changed?

Maybe I'm too cynical, but I suspect pressure from leadership to package whatever they had in vague language and ambiguous terms to create marketing copy that makes it appear the team is doing amazing work even though in two years we'll still be in roughly the same place we are today wrt quantum computing.

Reading through the announcement I see lots of interesting sounding ideas and claims that don't matter "designed to scale to a million qubits on a single chip" (why does that matter if we're still far, far away from more than a few thousands qubits?) and zero statements about actual capabilities that are novel or ground breaking.

Re: Microsoft unveils Majorana 1 quantum processor

#43

Post by crystal_revenge »

bob1029 wrote: post #14
kenjackson wrote: post #6

I need HN's classic pessimism to know if this is something to be excited about. Please chime in!

> "Every single atom in this chip is placed purposefully. It is constructed from ground up. It is entirely a new state of matter. Think of us as building the picture by painting it atom by atom." https://youtu.be/wSHmygPQukQ (~7:55) I don't know if marketing BS could get more hyperbolic than this.

Right off the bat "can scale to a million qubits" tells you it's BS since it only says what could be possible but makes zero claims about what it current does.

I mean my basement can scale to holding thousands of bars of solid gold, but currently houses... 0.

Re: Microsoft unveils Majorana 1 quantum processor

#47

Post by singularity2001 »

fooker wrote: post #39
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.

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

Re: Microsoft unveils Majorana 1 quantum processor

#49

Post by kjellsbells »

hdjjhhvvhga wrote: post #25
tmvphil wrote: post #15

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I work in the field. While all players are selling a dream right now, this announcement is even more farcical. Majoranas are still trying to get to the point where they have even one qubit that could be said to exist and whose performance can be quantified. The majorana approach (compared with more mature technologies like superconducting circuits or trapped ions) is a long game, where there are theoretical reasons t…

>> 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, and sold it off. Got entangled and ultimately lost the JEDI mega deal at the DoD. Was notably not the unit that developed or brought in AI to Microsoft. Doing anything in quantum is good news for whoever leads this division, and they need it.

On the bright side, this is still fundamentally something to be celebrated. Years ago major corporations did basic science research and we are all better off for those folk. With the uncertainty around the future of science funding in the US right now, I at least draw some comfort in the fact that its still happening. My jaded-ness about press releases in no way diminishes my respect for the science that the lab people are publishing.

Post reply on HN