Microsoft Creates New State Of Matter For Its Breakthrough Majorana 1 Quantum Computing Chip

“Most of us grew up learning there are three main types of matter that matter: solid, liquid, and gas. Today, that changed,” is what Microsoft Chairman and CEO Satya Nadella said about Microsoft’s latest quantum computing technology breakthrough via a LinkedIn post (also X).

This, of course, refers to the fact that for the longest time there existed only three states of matter.

That was until plasma came along and was touted as the fourth state of matter. However, some point out that plasma is just ionized gas and not an exclusively different state of matter, while others maintain that it's a part of the “four normal states of matter.”

In that case, numerous intermediate states (some which only exist under extreme conditions) are also considered to be unique states of matter, such as Bose–Einstein condensates, Fermionic condensates, quark–gluon plasma and more.

This gave rise to the debate over how many states of matter actually exist, where there remains no confirmed number.

Either way, Microsoft says it’s created a new state of matter to power its breakthrough quantum computing chip—Majorana 1.

“After a nearly 20-year pursuit, we’ve created an entirely new state of matter, unlocked by a new class of materials, topoconductors, that enable a fundamental leap in computing,” reads Nadella’s post, which was also published on Microsoft’s website.


Majorana 1 is the world’s first Quantum Processing Unit (QPU) that’s powered by a new Topological Core architecture, which is designed to scale to a million qubits on a single chip. The chip itself is just slightly bigger than CPUs that are found inside desktop PCs and servers.

This was possible as Microsoft opted to replace electrons with the Majorana particle (described by theoretical physicist Ettore Majorana in 1937.)

For this, Microsoft created the world’s first topoconductor, a breakthrough type of material which can observe and control Majorana particles to produce more reliable and scalable qubits.

These topoconductors are faster, more reliable, and smaller—coming in at 1/100th of a millimeter.

They were developed by creating an entirely new materials stack that combined indium arsenide (a semiconductor) and aluminum (a superconductor), much of which Microsoft designed and fabricated atom by atom.

“When cooled to near absolute zero and tuned with magnetic fields, these devices form topological superconducting nanowires with Majorana Zero Modes (MZMs) at the wires’ ends,” said Chetan Nayak, Microsoft technical fellow.

“We took a step back and said ‘OK, let’s invent the transistor for the quantum age. What properties does it need to have?’” said Nayak. “And that’s really how we got here – it’s the particular combination, the quality and the important details in our new materials stack that have enabled a new kind of qubit and ultimately our entire architecture.”

Comparing its invention to the semiconductors that have made today’s smartphones, computers and electronics possible, Microsoft said Majorana 1 is capable of solving meaningful, industrial-scale problems in years, not decades.

Furthermore, the new architecture and material also helps push towards the goal of making qubits as reliable as binary bits—one that IBM, Google, and Microsoft have been trying to achieve since years—seeing how the delicate and noise-sensitive nature of qubits leads to errors or data loss.


Satya Nadella added, “Imagine a chip that can fit in the palm of your hand yet is capable of solving problems that even all the computers on Earth today combined could not!”

As per Microsoft, Majorana 1 will enable quantum computers to deliver transformative, real-world solutions – such as breaking down microplastics into harmless byproducts or inventing self-healing materials for construction, manufacturing or healthcare.

“All the world’s current computers operating together can’t do what a one-million-qubit quantum computer will be able to do.”

Microsoft also published its research in Nature and arXiv.

Microsoft has also been selected by the Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency (DARPA) as one of the two companies tasked with advancing Underexplored Systems for Utility-Scale Quantum Computing (US2QC) program—one of the programs that makes up DARPA’s larger Quantum Benchmarking Initiative (QBI). Here, Microsoft intends to build a fault-tolerant prototype based on topological qubits in years, not decades.

Do you think Microsoft’s breakthrough quantum computing chip will dictate the direction of the quantum computing industry?

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