Microsoft unveils quantum chip 1,000 times more reliable as Bitcoin threat looms

Artificial intelligence is helping accelerate quantum computing breakthroughs as researchers race to build machines that could one day challenge cryptographic security Bitcoin And much of the modern Internet.

During its annual build conference on Tuesday, Microsoft unveiled Majorana 2, a new topological quantum chip that it says is 1,000 times more reliable than its predecessor. Microsoft said the chip achieves an average qubit lifetime of up to 20 seconds, with some lasting up to one minute.

In a Blog post After this announcement, Microsoft said that its Microsoft Discovery platform and Amnesty International agent The tools have helped researchers analyze decades of quantum research, identify promising materials, automate measurements, improve manufacturing processes, and uncover manufacturing defects that have improved qubit reliability.

“By applying recent advances in agentic AI specifically designed to accelerate the scientific process and accelerate collaboration, Microsoft’s quantum team is overcoming key barriers in reliability, speed, and scale that have limited the application of quantum computing to real-life scenarios,” Microsoft wrote.

Majorana 2 builds on Microsoft’s Majorana 1 chip by replacing the aluminum-based topological superconductor with a lead-based design that better protects qubits from interference, a change Microsoft said led to significant improvements in reliability and speed. Combined with its compact qubit design, the company said it brings scalable quantum computing closer to reality, something it now expects to achieve by 2029.

“We need to make improvements every year that move us closer to delivering a computer that we believe will have tremendous commercial and societal value,” Chetan Nayak, a Microsoft technical fellow, said in a statement. “We have to keep moving towards the roadmap to achieve this, but where are we compared to last year? We are 1,000 times better.”

To help researchers in many countries and disciplines navigate the project’s growing body of knowledge, Microsoft’s quantitative team developed an AI agent that organizes, analyzes and displays information from across the program.

“Using AI to automate measurements has been a game-changer,” said Zulfi Alam, corporate vice president of quantum at Microsoft. “It goes through some math and starts saying, ‘Hey, where can I find the lowest point where everything works?’ And it can do all these voltage adjustments in parallel, which humans can’t do. The way our minds work makes us more linear.”

This announcement comes amid ongoing concerns about…Q day“, the point at which a quantum computer becomes powerful enough to break widely used public-key encryption, allowing attackers to extract private keys from exposed public keys and steal funds.

Bitcoin is widely expected to be one of the biggest targets when that happens, with $461 billion worth of Bitcoin said to be at risk due to exposed public keys. It’s a possible future that developers seek to solve before it becomes a reality.

“What a quantum computer can do, and this is what Bitcoin is about, is formulate the digital signatures that Bitcoin uses today,” Justin Thaler, a research partner at Andreessen Horowitz and associate professor at Georgetown University, said previously. Decryption. “Someone with a quantum computer could authorize a transaction that takes all the bitcoins out of your accounts, or, however you want to think about it, when you don’t allow it. That’s the concern.”

Microsoft is not alone in reporting rapid progress. In October, Google’s Willow Slide Proven Significant reductions in quantitative error rates, while recent research from the California Institute of Technology Suggested Breaking elliptic curve encryption may require fewer quantum resources than previously estimated.

Google speculated that Q-Day could be the same It arrives By 2032, while other researchers have said It could happen by 2030.