This article is re -publish of The conversation under a Creative Commons license.

Researchers at Microsoft have announced the creation of the first ‘topological grant’ in a device that stores information in an exotic state of matter, which can be an important breakthrough for quantum computer.

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 a million Qubits, which can be enough to achieve many important goals of quantum computer science – such as cracking cryptographic codes and designing new medicines and materials faster.

If Microsoft’s allegations make out, the company may have competitors such as IBM and Google, which is currently leading the race to build a quantum computer.

However, the peer-reviewed nature article shows only part of what the researchers claimed, and the roadmap still contains many obstacles that need to be overcome. While the Microsoft press statement shows something that is supposed to be quantum computer hardware, we have no independent confirmation of what it can do. Nevertheless, Microsoft’s news is very promising.

By this time you probably have a few questions. What is a topological receipt? What is a sustain for the matter? And why do people want quantum computers in the first place?

Quantum pieces are difficult to build

Quantum computers were only dreamed of in the 1980s. Where an ordinary computer stores information in pieces, a quantum computer stores information in quantumbits or Qubits.

An ordinary bit can have a value of 0 or 1, but a quantumbis (thanks to the laws of quantum mechanics, which control very small particles) can have a combination of both. If you suggest an ordinary bis as an arrow that can show up or down, a curse is an arrow that can point in any direction (or what a ‘super position’ is called up and down).

This means that a quantum computer would be much faster than an ordinary computer for certain types of calculations – especially some that have to do with unbuttoning codes and simulating natural systems.

So far, so good. But it seems that the build -up of real quubits and information gets in and out of them is extremely difficult, because interaction with the outside world can destroy the delicate quantum conditions inside.

Researchers have tried many different technologies to make quubits, and use things like atoms trapped in electric fields, or that the current current is swimming in superconductors.

Small threads and exotic particles

Microsoft used a very different approach to build its ‘topological qubits’. They used the so -called Majorana particles, first theorized by the Italian physicist in 1937.

Majoranas are not naturally preventative particles such as electrons or protons. Instead, they exist only in a rare type of material called a topological superconductor (which needs advanced material design and must be cooled to exceptionally low temperatures).