Microsoft and Atom Computing say they’ve reached a new milestone in their effort to build fault-tolerant quantum computers that can show an advantage over classical computers.
Microsoft says it will start delivering the computers’ quantum capabilities to customers by the end of 2025, with availability via the Azure cloud service as well as through on-premises hardware.
“Together, we are co-designing and building what we believe will be the world’s most powerful quantum machine,” Jason Zander, executive vice president at Microsoft, said in a LinkedIn posting.
Like other players in the field, Microsoft’s Azure Quantum team and Atom Computing aim to capitalize on the properties of quantum systems — where quantum bits, also known as qubits, can process multiple values simultaneously. That’s in contrast to classical systems, which typically process ones and zeros to solve algorithms.
Microsoft has been working with Colorado-based Atom Computing on hardware that uses the nuclear spin properties of neutral ytterbium atoms to run quantum calculations. One of the big challenges is to create a system that can correct the errors that turn up during the calculations due to quantum noise. The solution typically involves knitting together “physical qubits” to produce an array of “logical qubits” that can correct themselves.
In a paper posted to the ArXiv preprint server, members of the research team say they were able to connect 256 noisy neutral-atom qubits using Microsoft’s qubit-virtualization system in such a way as to produce a system with 24 logical qubits.
“This represents the highest number of entangled logical qubits on record,” study co-author Krysta Svore, vice president of advanced quantum development for Microsoft Azure Quantum, said today in a blog posting. “Entanglement of the qubits is evidenced by their error rates being significantly below the 50% threshold for entanglement.”
Twenty of the system’s logical qubits were used to perform successful computations based on the Bernstein-Vazirani algorithm, which is used as a benchmark for quantum calculations.
“The logical qubits were able to produce a more accurate solution than the corresponding computation based on physical qubits,” Svore said. “The ability to compute while detecting and correcting errors is a critical component to scaling to achieve scientific quantum advantage.”
Researchers expect quantum computers to outperform classical computers on specific types of tasks — such as identifying the optimal solution amid a wide range of possibilities, or simulating complex systems ranging from molecules to markets.
Svore said Microsoft and Atom will offer a quantum computer that incorporates Atom’s neutral-atom hardware and Microsoft’s qubit-virtualization system. The computer will be integrated with Azure Quantum Elements.
“This offering is a comprehensive scientific suite that combines logical qubits, cloud HPC [high-performance computing] and advanced AI models that, together, enable exploration across multiple fields, including chemistry and materials science, while also providing opportunities for skilling and education,” Svore said.
Atom Computing CEO and founder Ben Bloom said he was “excited to continue our collaboration with Microsoft.”
“By coupling our state-of-the-art neutral-atom qubits with Microsoft’s qubit-virtualization system, we are now able to offer reliable logical qubits on a commercial quantum machine,” Bloom said. “This system will enable rapid progress in multiple fields including chemistry and materials science.”
The Microsoft-Atom collaboration isn’t the only game in town: Earlier this year, Microsoft and Quantinuum announced that they created four reliable logical qubits from just 30 physical qubits. And late last year, Harvard researchers said they built a quantum processor capable of encoding up to 48 logical qubits.
Those earlier milestones were noted in the newly released research paper. When asked about the Harvard research via email, members of the Microsoft-Atom team said the 48-logical-qubit array produced “a random output state” that was different from the more rigorous entangled state they achieved with 24 logical qubits. They said the Harvard team’s circuit wouldn’t have met the 50% entanglement threshold.
The fact that the standards for quantum computing are open to different interpretations can be disorienting, but that’s perfectly in line with the quantum realm’s reputation for fuzziness.
In other quantum computing developments:
- A Boston-based startup called Lightsynq Technologies says it has raised $18 million in a Series A funding round led by Cerberus Ventures. Lightsynq is developing optical quantum interconnects that enable hardware providers to link quantum processors. The venture was founded by Mihir Bhaskar, Bart Machielse and David Levonian, who were leading scientists at Amazon Web Services’ Center for Quantum Networking.
- IBM announced advancements in its quantum hardware and software that will allow its data centers to run certain classes of quantum circuits reliably with up to 5,000 two-qubit gate operations. The system takes advantage of IBM’s Quantum Heron processor and Qiskit software.
- Nvidia says it’s working with Google Quantum AI to accelerate the design of its next-generation quantum computing devices using simulations powered by Nvidia’s CUDA-Q platform.
- D-Wave Quantum says that it’s completed calibrating and benchmarking its Advantage2 quantum processing unit, which boasts more than 4,400 qubits.
