It leverages the world’s first topoconductor, a groundbreaking material that can observe and control Majorana particles to produce more reliable and scalable qubits, the building blocks of quantum computers.

Just as the invention of semiconductors made today’s smartphones, computers, and electronics possible, topoconductors and the new type of chip they enable offer a path to developing quantum systems that can scale to a million qubits and are capable of tackling the most complex industrial and societal problems, Microsoft said.

“We took a step back and said, ‘Okay, let’s invent the transistor for the quantum age. What properties does it need to have?’” said Chetan Nayak, a technical fellow at Microsoft. “And that’s how we actually got here: It’s the particular combination, the quality, and the important details in our new materials stack that enabled a new kind of qubit and, ultimately, our entire architecture.”