Quantum SUPREMACY? I do prefer Quantum DEMOCRACY

Microsoft is taking quantum computing to the cloud, making it available to anyone, democratizing its access in the same way it is doing with artificial intelligence and it did previously with personal computing ("a computer on every desk and in every home”.)

Microsoft announced its new quantum computing services this November 2019 at its Ignite conference in Orlando, saying it would launch in coming months. The company’s partners will run their quantum computers in their own facilities, but link them into Microsoft’s cloud over the internet.

Microsoft’s program differs from competitors in that it offers access to several different quantum computing technologies, in what could be a preview of the future of the quantum computing market. Microsoft’s model is, in fact, more like the existing computing industry, where cloud providers allow customers to choose processors from companies such as Intel and AMD. Being open is today at the core of Microsoft's values.

Microsoft got where it is by ensuring that Windows ran on many different types of hardware. Monday, the company said its cloud computing platform will soon allow its cloud customers to tap quantum computers. The company is preparing its Azure cloud computing service to offer select customers access to three prototype quantum computers, from engineering conglomerate Honeywell and two startups, IonQ, which emerged from the University of Maryland, and QCI, spun out of Yale.

Microsoft’s new service, christened Azure Quantum, integrates quantum programming tools the company released previously with its cloud service. Coders can run quantum code on simulated quantum hardware, or real quantum hardware from Honeywell, IonQ, or QCI. Developers and corporations should start playing with quantum algorithms and hardware now to help the industry learn what the technology is good for.

taking quantum computers to the cloud is key for democratizing its usage

Microsoft’s hardware partners represent two leading but different ways of building quantum computers. Honeywell and IonQ encode data using individual ions trapped in electromagnetic fields, while QCI uses superconducting metal circuits, the approach also favored by IBM and Google.

In addition, Microsoft is betting on an advanced version of the crucial device called topological qubit, predicted to be more stable than existing qubits. It’s based on manipulating a long-theorized but only recently glimpsed subatomic phenomenon called the Majorana zero mode, named after an Italian physicist who disappeared mysteriously in '38.

Finally, Microsoft did recently unveil a new computer chip. It’s conventional, not quantum, but specially designed to operate at temperatures colder than those of deep space, to help control the company’s hoped-for quantum processors when they arrive.

Like Google and IBM’s current quantum hardware, Microsoft’s future qubits will require cooling near to absolute zero inside a special refrigerator to operate. Creating a computer chip able to keep operating while nestled next to a quantum processor can reduce the number of control wires that need to run out to electronics outside the fridge. Google, whose quantum chips are controlled only by external electronics, said instead that wiring was a major challenge to scaling up its technology.

I'm just so extremely proud and grateful for working at such an amazing company

Are you ready for

quantum computing?