Majorana 1: Towards Topological Qubit Quantum Computing

On February 19, 2025 Microsoft unveiled its Majorana 1 topological qubit quantum processor. The company is currently developing a scalable quantum computing architecture built around a single-qubit device called a tetron. Built with a novel class of materials dubbed a topoconductor, the quantum chip utilizes a new state (or phase) of matter that is not based on solid, liquid or gas. In theory, topological qubits are more powerful than logical qubits. Logical qubits often contain 1000+ physical qubits, to get to error corrected quantum computing protected from environmental decoherence.

Further, neutral Rydberg atom based quantum computers, like the processors based on coherent transport of entangled atom arrays under development at Caltech and at QuEra, are promising as they scale easily and don't need Helium-3 cryo because they operate at room temperature or are laser cooled. One can create logical qubits from such atoms.

These topologies are relatively new as compared to the industry leading IBM Condor and Google Willow superconducting qubit chips, and Quantinuum's trapped ion architecture that lead the quest towards large-scale, fully fault-tolerant quantum computing.