https://www.cnet.com/news/for-faster-quantum-computing-microsoft-builds-a-better-qubit/For faster quantum computing, Microsoft builds a better qubit
Google just announced quantum supremacy, a milestone in which the radically different nature of a quantum computer lets it vastly outpace a traditional machine. But Microsoft expects progress of its own by redesigning the core element of quantum computing, the qubit.
Microsoft has been working on a qubit technology called a topological qubit that it expects will deliver benefits from quantum computing technology that today are mostly just a promise.
"We've really spent the recent few years developing that technology," Krysta Svore, general manager of Microsoft's quantum computing software work, said. "We believe we're very close to having that."
The key advantage of Microsoft's topological qubit is that fewer physical qubits are needed to make one logical qubit, Svore said.
Specifically, she thinks one logical qubit will require 10 to 100 physical qubits with Microsoft's topological qubits. That compares to something like 1,000 to 20,000 physical qubits for other approaches.