Author: Stephan Rachel, Professor, School of Physics, The University of Melbourne

Researchers at Microsoft have announced the creation of the first “topological qubits” in a device that stores information in an exotic state of matter, in what may be a significant breakthrough for quantum computing. At the same time, the researchers also published a paper in Nature and a “roadmap” for further work. The design of the Majorana 1 processor is supposed to fit up to a million qubits, which may be enough to realise many significant goals of quantum computing – such as cracking cryptographic codes and designing new drugs and materials faster. If Microsoft’s claims pan out, the company…