In its Accelerating Scientific Discovery virtual event, Microsoft had several major quantum computing announcements. First, the company announced it had achieved the first milestone of its six-step road map to a quantum supercomputer with a peer-reviewed research paper demonstrating the achievement.

The second announcement from the tech giant was the integration of its artificial intelligence (AI)-powered assistant, Copilot, into Azure Quantum, which adds the ability to use natural language to the cloud-based quantum tool.

How Microsoft achieved the first step to a quantum supercomputer

The tech giant defines a quantum supercomputer as a quantum system that is capable of solving problems even the most powerful classical supercomputers cannot. Unlike a quantum computer with physical qubits, a quantum supercomputer requires reliable logical qubits — each of which is formed from many physical qubits.

“A quantum supercomputer will be one of the most consequential technologies of our generation, enabling us to compute more like nature and to solve many of society's most difficult challenges,” Krysta Svore, distinguished engineer and VP of advanced quantum development, said during the virtual event.

The first step toward building a quantum supercomputer involves developing a new qubit with inherent stability at the hardware level.

Traditional qubits used in many of today’s noisy intermediate-scale quantum (NISQ) computers, including spin, transmon and gatemon qubits, were found to lack the required scalability, Microsoft noted.

That's why the tech giant set out to engineer a new qubit with inherent stability. A peer-reviewed paper published in "Physical Review B," a journal of the American Physical Society, validates this achievement. The paper details the development of a device that can controllably induce a topological phase of matter characterized by Majorana Zero Modes (MZMs), paving the way for the creation of a more stable qubit.

“Over the years we have engineered numerous types of qubits and found none were capable of scaling all the way to a quantum supercomputer,” Svore said. “That's why we're engineering a brand new type of scalable qubit that is inherently more stable than other qubits, and is small, fast and controllable.”

"We can now create and control Majoranas. It's akin to inventing steel leading to the launch of the Industrial Revolution. This achievement clears the path to the next milestone, a hardware-protected qubit that can scale, which we're engineering right now,” she added.

Microsoft's road map to quantum supercomputing

Svore noted the quantum industry traditionally measures quantum systems by counting their physical qubits or quantum volume. “But for a quantum supercomputer, measuring performance will be all about understanding how reliable the system will be for solving real problems.”

According to Microsoft, its quantum supercomputer will first need to deliver at least 1 million reliable quantum operations per second (rQOPS) with an error rate of, at most, 10 to the power of minus 12 (one in a trillion) operations. “Our industry as a whole is yet to achieve this goal,” Svore said.

Microsoft set a six-step roadmap to achieve its quantum supercomputer which, according to a blog post,  involves the following:

1. Creating and controlling Majoranas
2. The development of hardware-protected qubits
3. High-quality hardware-protected qubits
4. A multi-qubit system
5. A resilient quantum system
6. A reliable quantum supercomputer

Svore highlighted the fifth step will be a foundational breakthrough to enable the first rQOPS. “We will have logical qubits for the first time and a resilient quantum system. Once we have these reliable, logical qubits, we [will be] able to engineer a quantum supercomputer.”

Microsoft defines a resilient quantum system as “a quantum machine operating on reliable logical qubits that demonstrates higher quality operations than the underlying physical qubits.”

When reaching the final step — quantum supercomputer — it will “unlock solutions that have never been accessible before, solutions that are intractable on classical computers,” Svore said.

Integrating AI for Copilot in Azure Quantum

Building a quantum supercomputer is one of Microsoft’s attempts to achieve its vision of compressing the progress of chemistry and materials science into a significantly shorter timeframe. "Our goal is to compress the next 250 years of chemistry and materials science progress into the next 25," Microsoft Chairman and CEO Satya Nadella said.

Another strategy is the integration of AI. The company has been integrating OpenAI's generative pretrained transformers into its product line, and this time it's extending it to Azure Quantum.

The Copilot in Microsoft's Azure Quantum tool is designed to help scientists use natural language to reason through complex chemistry and materials science problems and learn about quantum and write code for quantum computers.

Svore noted this new GPT-powered Copilot is augmented with additional data related to quantum computing, chemistry and materials science. Microsoft integrated the functions, including a built-in code editor, quantum simulator and seamless code compilation, into a browser-based experience available to try for free, no Azure subscription needed.

“You can ask Copilot questions about quantum. You can ask it to develop and compile quantum code right in the browser. You can ask it about chemistry and molecular properties, and you can quickly get up to date on research,” she said. “Our aim is to encourage a stronger bridge between these transformational fields for learners and innovators alike.”