What is the first Quantum Supercomputer by Microsoft?

Microsoft has shared its plans to design a custom quantum supercomputer. What are supercomputers? Let's understand.

Astha Pasricha
Jul 10, 2023, 11:32 IST
Microsoft's supercomputers
Microsoft's supercomputers

Microsoft has announced that it plans to design a custom quantum supercomputer. On Wednesday, the company's plan was made available to the public. Microsoft makes a claim stating that quantum supercomputers may revolutionize chemistry, fight climate change, and decrease food shortages. The company claims that after the quantum computer touches a myriad of milestones, it may be made to use to solve the most complex issues our society faces.

As per Microsoft, the road to quantum computing is the same as the present-day supercomputers. The company has picked three milestones to touch after which the programmable quantum supercomputers could fight issues that are beyond the existing quantum technology's scope.

At present, test machines are designed with "noisy" physical qubits. These are not beneficial enough to deal with real problems. The development currently is at the basic level. 

Microsoft has combined machines like IonQ, Quantinuum, Rigetti, Pasqqal, and QCI together with Azure Quantum Elements. Azure Quantum Elements is a fresh service that accelerates scientific discovery by means of integrating the latest breakthroughs in HPC.

The moment the reliability of individual qubits is enhanced, quantum computing development will move towards the resilient levels. This stage is hit once bundling thousands of physical qubits into a rather logical qubit becomes possible. 

Finally, the third level is hit when it gets possible to engineer a programmable, scaled quantum supercomputer that is capable of performing classical supercomputers in problem-solving.

 

There is definitely a lot of work that is required to be done before quantum computers can actually reach the final level. The first quantum computer will be required to deliver an error rate of one per trillion operations. 

Microsoft definitely has plenty of rivals in the quantum computers race. The IonQ and the IBM are to name a few. These rivals share identical visions. However, Microsoft may have a slight edge due to the major breakthroughs it experienced the previous year. Microsoft showcased the capabilities to generate more stable qubits on the basis of Majorana particles, which make use of topological insulators to protect themselves from the noise of the environment.

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Astha Pasricha
Astha Pasricha

Content Writer

    Astha Pasricha is a content writing professional with experience in writing rich and engaging content for websites, blogs, and chatbots. She is a graduate of Journalism and Mass Communication and English Honors. She has previously worked with organizations like Groomefy, Shiksha.com, Upside Me, EGlobal Soft Solutions and Codeflies Technologies Pvt. Ltd. At Jagran Josh, she writes content for the General Knowledge section. You can reach her at astha.pasricha@jagrannewmedia.com.
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