Microsoft makes several key quantum computing announcements

On September 10, 2024, Microsoft made several announcements regarding its progress in the quantum computing (QC) market. See the links below.

First, the company announced an end-to-end workflow for a quantum chemistry computation that utilizes not only an error-corrected QC element, but also classical HPC at the beginning of the workflow and generative AI at the end of the workflow. This pre- and post-processing helps to address (to some extent) the limitations of current small-scale QCs.

Think of the classical HPC front-end as a funnel, winnowing down the possible solution space to those potential solutions most deserving of closer inspection by a small-scale QC. The role of the QC in this workflow is to increase the accuracy of the resulting solution, though Microsoft is clear that this experiment could readily have been performed on purely classical hardware; it’s the end-to-end workflow example that is the key advancement. Finally, the AI post-processing helps to reduce the readout overhead by leveraging classical shadows of the readout data to generate a classical model that can then predict various aspects of the chemical compound under investigation.

Quantum-classical workflow integration is an area of keen interest in the industry, and a key reason why several HPC centers in North America, Europe, and Asia & Oceania have purchased on-premises QCs. On-premises access gives researchers the opportunity to experiment directly with quantum-classical integration in ways that are not possible via the cloud.

Second, Microsoft gave an update of additional work with trapped ion QC vendor Quantinuum, announcing experiments to create up to 12 logical qubits, compared to the four logical qubits in their previous experiments announced in April 2024.

Interestingly, Microsoft shared that its proprietary “qubit virtualization” QEC code is based on a 4D hypercube. The Riken Center for Quantum Computing also recently published [link] on the use of hypercubes to increase the ratio of logical qubits (i.e., reduce the number of physical qubits needed to make each logical qubit.)  If 3D and 4D structures become a mainstream advancement for improving quantum error correction efficiency, it could imply an important competitive advantage for flexible, any-to-any qubit modalities (e.g., trapped ions and neutral atoms) because of the difficulty of interconnecting non-local qubits in fixed, planar modalities.

Third, and speaking of neutral atoms, the company announced its close collaboration with neutral atom qubit QC vendor Atom Computing. Neutral atom-based vendors are finding success in rapidly scaling up the number of qubits in their systems, and Atom Computing is working on a 1,200-qubit monster.

Microsoft and Atom Computing are collaborating in what seems to be a co-development model, to optimize the fit between the hardware and Microsoft’s qubit virtualization software. Usually, co-development takes place between a hardware vendor and application developer, to precisely match the hardware to a specific application algorithm. In this case, the mOn September 10, 2024, Microsoft made several announcements regarding its progress in the quantum computing (QC) market. See the links below.

With Atom Computing, I’m most curious about what a 1,200-qubit ceiling enables the partners to do with respect to increasing the code distance and, hence, reducing the logical error rate, of the QC’s logical computations. Google’s huge logical qubit announcement last month was notable for estimating that moving from a distance-7 code to a distance-27 code (to lower the logical error rate down to e-6) would require moving from 101 physical qubits to 1,457 physical qubits for each logical qubit (formed from the low ratio surface code). Generally, a lower error rate forces the need for a lower ratio. With Microsoft’s high ratio QEC code, could we start to see multiple logical qubits in the e-6 range?

Overall, Microsoft’s announcements illustrate the industry’s steady progress towards commercially meaningful QC advantage.

Microsoft and Quantinuum create 12 logical qubits and demonstrate a hybrid, end-to-end chemistry simulation

Quantinuum accelerates the path to Universal Fully Fault-Tolerant Quantum Computing

Atom Computing: Building Quantum Supercomputers with Microsoft