Microsoft announced its roadmap to creating the first true quantum supercomputer

Today, the development of quantum computing is at a foundational level. (Photo: Microsoft)

Microsoft has brought these machines together (including IonQ, Pasqal, Quantinuum, QCI, and Rigetti) for Azure Quantum Elements. Azure Quantum Elements is a new service that accelerates scientific discovery by integrating the latest breakthroughs in high-performance computing (HPC).

Once the reliability of individual qubits is improved, quantum computing development will move towards flexible levels. This stage is achieved when thousands of physical qubits can be merged into one logical qubit. However, this requires the error rate of the physical qubit to be below a certain threshold, otherwise error correction will not be successful.

Finally, level three is reached when it is possible to design a large-scale, programmable quantum supercomputer capable of outperforming classical supercomputers in problem solving.

Clearly, there is still a lot of work that needs to be done before quantum computers can reach the final level. The first quantum supercomputer will need to provide an error rate of just one for every trillion operations. Looking back, early computing pioneers had to overcome similar obstacles in the transition from vacuum tubes to transistors to integrated circuits.

That said, Microsoft has many rivals in the quantum computing race, such as IBM and IonQ, which share similar ambitions. However, the company may have a slight advantage thanks to the major breakthrough it achieved last year. Its team has demonstrated the ability to create more stable qubits based on Majorana particles, which use topological insulators to protect themselves from environmental noise.