Drama over quantum computing’s future heats up
On March 18th, Chetan Nayak, a physicist leading Microsoft’s quantum team, presented new data on the company’s quantum computing chip at the American Physical Society’s Global Physics Summit in Anaheim, California. It was meant to calm a raging debate among physicists, but researchers remain skeptical of the results. “I never felt like there would be one moment when everyone is fully convinced,†Nayak told Nature in a March 18th article.Â
The controversy centers on Microsoft’s February claim that it had built a new type of quantum hardware — a topological qubit, made from a pattern of electrons on a tiny wire. Microsoft claimed that the qubit is less prone to errors. That would make quantum computers easier to scale up to something big enough to actually be useful. But in the journal article accompanying the release, the editors wrote that Microsoft had not conclusively shown the electrons forming the signature pattern, known as Majorana zero modes. In 2021, Microsoft had to retract a similar claim.Â
When quantum computers become useful, ordinary consumers shouldn’t expect them as personal devices.
“Discourse and skepticism are all part of the scientific pr …