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Topological Qubits are Here! Discussing Majorana 1 — with Chetan Nayak of Microsoft | Ep. 97

Quantum computing will never be the same again. Join host Konstantinos Karagiannis for a special onsite interview at Microsoft Azure Quantum labs, where he was invited to see the launch of Majorana 1, the world’s first quantum processor powered by topological qubits. On the day this episode is posted, Nature will release a paper validating how Microsoft was able to create a topoconductor, or new material stack of indium arsenide and aluminum, built literally one atom at a time, to bring quantum particles called Majoranas into usable form. The resulting topological qubits have a unique shape called a tetron and can be accurately measured with lower errors than other modalities. Starting with a 4×2 grid of qubits, this same tiny device will hold 1 million qubits in a few years because of its unique system of wiring and measurement. This interview with Chetan Nayak from Microsoft happened a few feet away from a working Majorana 1 system.

For more information on Microsoft Azure Quantum, visit https://quantum.microsoft.com/.

Read the technical blog here: https://aka.ms/MSQuantumAQBlog.

For photos from the Microsoft labs and other links, visit @konstanthacker on X and Instagram.

Visit Protiviti at www.protiviti.com/US-en/technology-consulting/quantum-computing-services to learn more about how Protiviti is helping organizations get post-quantum ready.

Follow host Konstantinos Karagiannis on all socials: @KonstantHacker and follow Protiviti Technology on LinkedIn and Twitter: @ProtivitiTech.

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Microsoft’s Topological Quantum Computer Explained

Visit Microsoft Azure Quantum here to learn about quantum computing for free https://quantum.microsoft.com/?ocid=2… https://quantum.microsoft.com/en-us/e… Topological quantum computing is a brand new form of quantum computing being developed by Microsoft as they enter the race to build the world’s first useful quantum computer. In this video I visited Microsoft’s quantum labs to see how they are making their topological quantum computers and learn how topology helps their quantum devices avoid noise by harnessing the power of Majorana quasiparticles which are made from an exotic form of superconductivity where the electrons behave like there is a Majorana particle there which has the special properties of topology.

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For North America visit my DFTBA Store: https://store.dftba.com/collections/d… the rest of the world go to my RedBubble Store: https://www.redbubble.com/people/Domi… I have also made posters available for personal or educational use which you can find here: https://www.flickr.com/photos/9586967… Some Awesome People And many thanks to my $10 supporters and above on Patreon, you are awesome! Join the gang and help support me produce free and high quality science content: / domainofscience Tut Arom Anja Jason Evans machinator rimor Mirik Gogri Eric Epstein Sebastian Theodore Chu My Science Books I also write science books for kids called Professor Astro Cat. You can see them all here: https://flyingeyebooks.com/book/profe… http://profastrocat.com Follow me around the internet http://dominicwalliman.com / dominicwalliman / dominicwalliman Credits Writer, art, animation and edited by Dominic Walliman I use Adobe Illustrator and After Effects for the graphics (for the many people who ask smile References “InAs-Al hybrid devices passing the topological gap protocol” https://journals.aps.org/prb/abstract… “A cryogenic CMOS chip for generating control signals for multiple qubits” https://www.nature.com/articles/s4192… Topological qubit noise levels — “Assessing requirements to scale to practical quantum advantage” chrome-extension://efaidnbmnnnibpcajpcglclefindmkaj/ https://arxiv.org/pdf/2211.07629 Chapters 00:00 Topological Quantum Computing 02:01 Topology Explained 04:47 Resilience to Noise 05:51 Anatomy of a Quantum Computer 07:05 Chip Fabrication and Lab Tour 09:41 How to Build a Quantum Computer 11:21 Topological Quantum Computing Lego Explainer 15:40 Microsoft’s Results 17:50 Majorana Particle Explained 21:31 Sponsor Message 23:03 Thanks Patrons!
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Quantum machine offers peek into ‘dance’ of cosmic bubbles

Physicists have performed a groundbreaking simulation they say sheds new light on an elusive phenomenon that could determine the ultimate fate of the Universe.

Pioneering research in quantum field theory around 50 years ago proposed that the universe may be trapped in a false vacuum — meaning it appears stable but in fact could be on the verge of transitioning to an even more stable, true vacuum state. While this process could trigger a catastrophic change in the Universe’s structure, experts agree that predicting the timeline is challenging, but it is likely to occur over an astronomically long period, potentially spanning millions of years.

In an international collaboration between three research institutions, the team report gaining valuable insights into false vacuum decay — a process linked to the origins of the cosmos and the behaviour of particles at the smallest scales. The collaboration was led by Professor Zlatko Papic, from the University of Leeds, and Dr Jaka Vodeb, from Forschungszentrum Jülich, Germany.

Mercor, An Artificial Intelligence Recruiting Startup Founded By 21-Year-Olds, Raises $100 Million At $2 Billion Valuation

In today’s AI news, Mercor, the AI recruiting startup founded by three 21-year-old Thiel Fellows, has raised $100 million in a Series B round, the company confirmed to TechCrunch. Menlo Park-based Felicis led the round, valuing Mercor at $2 billion — eight times its previous valuation. Existing investors Benchmark and General Catalyst, as well as DST Global and Menlo Ventures participated.

In other advancements, GPT-4.5 could arrive as soon as next week, as Microsoft gets ready to host OpenAI’s latest artificial intelligence models.

Microsoft engineers are currently readying server capacity for OpenAI’s upcoming GPT-4.5 and GPT-5 models. While OpenAI CEO Sam Altman acknowledged recently that GPT-4.5 will launch within a matter of weeks.

Then, OpenAI’s astounding growth rate potential is luring possible investors as questions loom over whether the startup will go public. “In terms of a multiple to pay for stock like ours, there’s incredible interest at the moment,” finance chief Sarah Friar told CNBC’s David Faber on Thursday. Its future growth potential has also enabled OpenAI to “achieve valuations that are on par with the growth rate of the scale” it is reaching.

S internal testing, it could mark a meaningful step forward for an all-purpose multimodal AI that can operate interactively in both real and digital spaces. + In videos, Figure is introducing Helix, a generalist Vision-Language-Action (VLA) model that unifies perception, language understanding, and learned control to overcome multiple longstanding challenges in robotics. A detailed report on Helix can be found in text accompanying the video.

Then, in this episode of Moonshots Peter Diamandis is joined by a panel of leaders in the session Transforming Business with AI: Opportunity or Overload? at Miami FII. Panelists include: Prem Akkaraju, CEO, Stability AI Ramin Hasani, Co-Founder & CEO, Liquid AI Jack Hidary, CEO, SandboxAQ Jim Keller, CEO, Tenstorrent Alexander Sukharevsky, Senior Partner & Managing Partner, QuantumBlack, AI, McKinsey & Company.

Meanwhile, AI is evolving into a mysterious new form of intelligence — powerful yet flawed, capable of remarkable feats but still far from human-like reasoning and efficiency. To truly understand it and unlock its potential, we need a new science of intelligence that combines neuroscience, AI and physics, says neuroscientist and Stanford professor Surya Ganguli.

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Newly realized nuclear-spin dark state promises reduced quantum decoherence

Quantum computers, which operate leveraging quantum mechanics phenomena, could eventually tackle some optimization and computational problems faster and more efficiently than their classical counterparts. Instead of bits, the fundamental units of information in classical computers, quantum computers rely on qubits (quantum bits), which can be in multiple states at once.

Silicon-based quantum dots, semiconductor-based structures that trap individual electrons, have been widely used as qubits, as the spin state of the electrons they confine can be leveraged to encode information. Despite their promise, many quantum computers developed so far are susceptible to decoherence, which entails the disruption of qubit states due to their interaction with the surrounding environment.

Researchers at the University of Rochester recently set out to experimentally realize a so-called nuclear-spin dark state, a condition that has been theorized to improve the performance of quantum computers, suppressing undesirable interactions and thus reducing decoherence. Their paper, published in Nature Physics, demonstrates the potential of this state for reducing decoherence in and thus potentially improving control over quantum information processing.

Topological quantum processor uses Majorana zero modes for fault-tolerant computing

In a leap forward for quantum computing, a Microsoft team led by UC Santa Barbara physicists on Wednesday unveiled an eight-qubit topological quantum processor, the first of its kind. The chip, built as a proof-of-concept for the scientists’ design, opens the door to the development of the long-awaited topological quantum computer.

“We’ve got a bunch of stuff that we’ve been keeping under wraps that we’re dropping all at once now,” said Microsoft Station Q Director Chetan Nayak, a professor of physics at UCSB and a Technical Fellow for Quantum Hardware at Microsoft. The chip was revealed at Station Q’s annual conference in Santa Barbara, and accompanies a paper published in the journal Nature, authored by Station Q, their Microsoft teammates and a host of collaborators that presents the research team’s measurements of these new qubits.

“We have created a new state of matter called a topological superconductor,” Nayak explained. This phase of matter hosts exotic boundaries called Majorana zero modes (MZM) that are useful for , he explained. Results of rigorous simulation and testing of their heterostructure devices are consistent with the observation of such states. “It shows that we can do it, do it fast and do it accurately,” he said.

First two-way adaptive brain-computer interface enhances communication efficiency

Joint research demonstrating the ability to readout superconducting qubits with an optical transducer was published in Nature Physics.

Quantum computing has the potential to drive transformative breakthroughs in fields such as advanced material design, artificial intelligence, and drug discovery. Of the quantum computing modalities, superconducting qubits are a leading platform towards realizing a practical quantum computer given their fast gate speeds and ability to leverage existing semiconductor industry manufacturing techniques.

However, fault-tolerant quantum computing will likely require 10,000 to a million physical qubits. The sheer amount of wiring, amplifiers and microwave components required to operate such large numbers of qubits far exceeds the capacity of modern-day dilution refrigerators, a core component of a superconducting quantum computing system, in terms of both space and passive heat load.

Quantum Billiards: Cracking the Code of Light-Assisted Atomic Collisions

In a groundbreaking study, scientists developed new ways to control atom collisions using optical tweezers, offering insights that could advance quantum computing and molecular science. By manipulating light frequencies and atomic energy levels, they mapped out how specific atomic characteristics influence collision outcomes, paving the way for more precise quantum manipulation.

Advancing quantum materials: A new approach to controlling electronic states

A collaborative team of researchers from the Max Planck Institute for Structure and Dynamics of Matter (MPSD), Nanjing University, Songshan Lake Materials Laboratory (SLAB), and international partners has introduced a new method to regulate exotic electronic states in two-dimensional materials.

Building on the foundations laid by their previous work on twisted van der Waals materials, the team of physicists has now discovered a novel way to manipulate correlated electronic states in twisted double bilayer tungsten diselenide (TDB-WSe₂). This breakthrough offers new possibilities for developing advanced quantum materials and devices.

By precisely twisting two bilayers of WSe₂ near a 60-degree angle and applying a perpendicular electric field, the researchers have achieved control over the interaction between two distinct electronic bands, known as the K-valley and Γ-valley bands. This tuning has led to the observation of a “valley charge-transfer insulator”—an exotic state where electron movement is highly correlated, and electrical conductivity is suppressed.

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