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Category: computing – Page 18

Microsoft announced a major milestone in its quantum computing efforts on Wednesday, unveiling its first quantum computing chip, called Majorana 1. Jason Zander, Microsoft’s executive VP of strategic missions and technologies explains this breakthrough and how it gets quantum computing technology closer to real world applications. Zander speaks to Bloomberg Technology’s Jackie Davalos.
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Hear from the Microsoft team behind the recent breakthrough in physics and quantum computing demonstrated by the new Majorana 1 chip, engineered from an entirely new material that has the potential to scale to millions of qubits on a single chip. Find out what is possible…

Chapters:
0:00 — Introducing Majorana 1
1:26 — Why does quantum computing matter?
2:47 — Qubits, the building blocks of quantum computing.
5:05 — Understanding the topological state.
7:00 — How the Majorana 1 chip works.
9:10 — How quantum and classical computing work together.
10:13 — The Quantum Age.

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For more about Microsoft, our technology, and our mission, visit https://aka.ms/microsoftstories

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When superconductors were discovered in 1911, they astounded researchers with their ability to conduct electricity with no resistance. However, they could only do so at temperatures close to absolute zero. But in 1986, scientists discovered that cuprates (a class of copper oxides) were superconductive at a relatively warm −225°F (above liquid nitrogen)—a step toward the ultimate goal of a superconductor that could operate at close to room temperature.

Applications of such a superconductor include compact and portable MRI machines, levitating trains, long-range electrical transmission without power loss, and more resilient quantum bits for quantum computers. Unfortunately, cuprates are a type of ceramic material which makes their application at industrial scales difficult—their brittleness, for example, would pose problems.

However, if researchers could understand what makes them superconduct at such high temperatures, they could recreate such processes in other materials. Despite a great deal of research, though, there is still a lack of consensus on the microscopic mechanism leading to their unusual superconductivity, making it difficult to take advantage of their unusual properties.

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There is a big problem with quantum technology—it’s tiny. The distinctive properties that exist at the subatomic scale usually disappear at macroscopic scales, making it difficult to harness their superior sensing and communication capabilities for real-world applications, like optical systems and advanced computing.

Now, however, an international team led by physicists at Penn State and Columbia University has developed a novel approach to maintain special quantum characteristics, even in three-dimensional (3D) materials.

The researchers published their findings in Nature Materials.

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“ tabindex=”0” accuracy and scale, brings scientists closer to understanding how neurons connect and communicate.

Mapping Thousands of Synaptic Connections

Harvard researchers have successfully mapped and cataloged over 70,000 synaptic connections from approximately 2,000 rat neurons. They achieved this using a silicon chip capable of detecting small but significant synaptic signals from a large number of neurons simultaneously.

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Majorana’s theory proposed that a particle could be its own antiparticle. That means it’s theoretically possible to bring two of these particles together, and they will either annihilate each other in a massive release of energy (as is normal) or can coexist stably when pairing up together — priming them to store quantum information.

These subatomic particles do not exist in nature, so to nudge them into being, Microsoft scientists had to make a series of breakthroughs in materials science, fabrication methods and measurement techniques. They outlined these discoveries — the culmination of a 17-year-long project — in a new study published Feb. 19 in the journal Nature.

Chief among these discoveries was the creation of this specific topoconductor, which is used as the basis of the qubit. The scientists built their topoconductor from a material stack that combined a semiconductor made of indium arsenide (typically used in devices like night vision goggles) with an aluminum superconductor.

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The move places True Anomaly in closer proximity to the Space Systems Command in Los Angeles, which oversees billions in Space Force procurement, and taps into Southern California’s deep aerospace talent pool.

The majority of the Long Beach factory will be dedicated to the design, development and manufacturing of new products for the military market, including some being developed for classified U.S. Space Force programs, True Anomaly’s CEO Even Rogers said in an interview.

The company’s headquarters and existing manufacturing facility will remain in Centennial, Colorado, where True Anomaly makes its flagship product, the Jackal satellite, designed to perform in-orbit activities such as rendezvous and proximity operations, and imaging of objects in orbit. The company also developed an operating system software for space domain awareness called Mosaic.

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A quantum “miracle material” could support magnetic switching, a team of researchers at the University of Regensburg and University of Michigan has shown.

The study “Controlling Coulomb correlations and fine structure of quasi-one-dimensional excitons by magnetic order” was published in Nature.

This recently discovered capability could help enable applications in , sensing and more. While earlier studies identified that quantum entities called excitons are sometimes effectively confined to a single line within the material chromium sulfide bromide, the new research provides a thorough theoretical and experimental demonstration explaining how this is connected to the magnetic order in the material.

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