Controversy erupts over claims Microsoft invented a new state of matter – Salon
The matter making up the world around us has long-since been organized into three neat categories: solids, liquids and gases. But last month, Microsoft announced that it had allegedly discovered another state of matter originally theorized to exist in 1937. This new state of matter called the Majorana zero mode is made up of quasiparticles, which act as their own particle and antiparticle. The idea is that the Majorana zero mode could be used to build a quantum computer, which could help scientists answer complex questions that standard computers are not capable of solving, with implications for medicine, cybersecurity and artificial intelligence.In late February, Sen. Ted Cruz presented Microsoft’s new computer chip at a congressional hearing, saying, “Technologies like this new chip I hold in the palm of my hand, the Majorana 1 quantum chip, are unlocking a new era of computing that will transform industries from health care to energy, solving problems that today’s computers simply cannot.”RelatedHowever, Microsoft’s announcement, claiming a “breakthrough in quantum computing,” was met with skepticism from some physicists in the field. Proving that this form of quantum computing can work requires first demonstrating the existence of Majorana quasiparticles, measuring what the Majorana particles are doing, and creating something called a topological qubit used to store quantum information.But some say that not all of the data necessary to prove this has been included in the research paper published in Nature, on which this announcement is based. And due to a fraught history of similar claims from the company being disputed and ultimately rescinded, some are extra wary of the results.Although the paper describes the structure and architecture that could potentially be used to build a topological quantum computer, it’s not clear if all of these ingredients can be put together to actually construct the system, said Dr. Jelena Klinovaj, a theoretical physicist at the University of Basel who studies topology of quantum. “Discourse and skepticism are all part of the scientific process.”“In this Microsoft paper, they cannot show that they can really operate it,” Klinovaj told Salon in a video call. “They did not show in a peer-reviewed publication that it is really a topological state because some objects could have exactly the same properties in experiments.”Despite Microsoft’s announcement, one of the peer-review files accompanying the Nature paper also states, “The editorial team wishes to point out that the results in this manuscript do not represent evidence for the presence of Majorana zero modes in the reported devices.”Dr. Chetan Nayak, Microsoft Station Q Director, said in an email that prior work published in Nature “confirms the existence of [Majorana zero modes] and demonstrates the basic operation needed for a topological qubit.”“Since then, we have fabricated and tested topological qubits, building on this prior work and further confirming the existence of [Majorana zero modes],” Nayak wrote.A Microsoft spokesperson said in an email that the company has made significant progress since the paper was submitted and has been able to demonstrate “the basic native operations in a measurement-based topological qubit.”Want more health and science stories in your inbox? Subscribe to Salon’s weekly newsletter Lab Notes.“Discourse and skepticism are all part of the scientific process,” they wrote. “That is why we are dedicated to the continued open publication of our research, so that everyone can build on what others have discovered and learned.”It’s not the first time Microsoft has faced backlash from presenting findings in the field. In 2018, the company reported that they had detected the presence of Majorana zero-modes in a research paper, but it was retracted by Nature, the journal that published it after a report from independent experts put their findings under more intense scrutiny.In the report, four physicists not involved in the research concluded that it did not appear that Microsoft had intentionally misrepresented the data, but instead seemed to be “caught up in the excitement of the moment.”Establishing the existence of these particles is extremely complex in part because disorder in the device can create signals that mimic these quasiparticles when they are not actually there. “Me and many other experts do not think they have demonstrated even the basic science behind it.”Modern computers in use today are encoded in bits, which can either be in a zero state (no current flowing through them), or a one state (current flowing.) These bits work together to send information and signals that communicate with the computer, powering everything from cell phones to video games.Companies like Google, IBM and Amazon have invested in designing another form of quantum computer that uses chips built with “qubits,” or quantum bits. Qubits can exist in both zero and one states at the same time due to a phenomenon called superposition. However, qubits are subject to external noise from the environment that can affect their performance, said Dr. Paolo Molignini, a researcher in theoretical quantum physics at Stockholm University.“Because qubits are in a superposition of zero and one, they are very prone to errors and they are very prone to what is called decoherence, which means there could be noise, thermal fluctuations or many things that can collapse the state of the qubits,” Molignini told Salon in a video call. “Then you basically lose all of the information that you were encoding.”It’s necessary to correct errors that creep in with this noise, and in order to do so, you need to add many more qubits to the system. Within the last six months, Amazon announced it had built a computer chip that used five qubits, and Google announced that it had built one with 105 qubits.In December, Google said its quantum computer could perform a calculation that a standard computer could complete in 10 septillion years — a period far longer than the age of the universe — in just under five minutes. RelatedHowever, a general-purpose computer would require billions of qubits, so these approaches are still a far cry from having practical applications, said Dr. Patrick Lee, a physicist at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, who co-authored the report leading to the 2018 Nature paper’s retraction.Microsoft is taking a different approach to quantum computing by trying to develop a topological qubit, which has the ability to store information in multiple places at once. Topological qubits exist within the Majorana zero states and are appealing because they can theoretically offer greater protection against environmental noise that destroys information within a quantum system.Think of it like an arrow, where the arrowhead holds a portion of the information and the arrow tail holds the rest, Lee said. Distributing information across space like this is called topological protection.“If you are able to put them far apart from each other, then you have a chance of maintaining the identity of the arrow even if it is subject to noise,” Lee told Salon in a phone interview. “The idea is that if the noise affects the head, it doesn’t kill the arrow and if it affects only the tail it doesn’t kill your arrow. It has to affect both sides simultaneously to kill your arrow, and that is very unlikely if you are able to put them apart.”In a Microsoft press release announcing the Majorana 1, the company says the chip could calculate catalysts that break down plastic pollutants and “lead to self-healing materials that repair cracks in bridges or airplane parts, shattered phone screens or scratched car doors.”“Enzymes, a kind of biological catalyst, could be harnessed more effectively in healthcare and agriculture, thanks to accurate calculations about their behavior that only quantum computing can provide,” it states. “This could lead to breakthroughs helping to eradicate global hunger: boosting soil fertility to increase yields or promoting sustainable growth of foods in harsh climates.”Yet Dr. Sergey Frolov, an associate professor of physics at the University of Pittsburgh whose analysis of the 2018 study data led to its subsequent investigation and retraction, argues that the paper does not demonstrate the existence of a topological qubit which is critical in establishing the quantum computing system they say they are creating.“The long story short is that me and many other experts do not think they have demonstrated even the basic science behind it, let alone the leap into technology of scaling up, production, etc.,” Frolov told Salon in a phone interview. Nevertheless, Lee believes that even if the data doesn’t entirely prove that topological qubits exist in the Majorana zero-state, it still represents a scientific advancement. But he noted that several important issues need to be solved before it has practical implications. For one, the coherence time of these particles — or how long they can exist without being affected by environmental noise — is still very short, he explained.“They make a measurement, come back, and the qubit has changed, so you have lost your coherence,” Lee said. “With this very short time, you cannot do anything with it.”We need your help to stay independentIt could be that some form of engineering is necessary to incrementally improve the coherence of the qubits to solve this problem, Lee said. Or, it could require other major scientific breakthroughs that change the way we think about them, he said. Nayak said the company plans to present these findings at the American Physical Society’s Global Physics Summit later this month. But it’s yet to be seen if all of the pieces necessary to make this form of quantum computer will come together into something with practical implications.“As far as the press announcement that they have a topological qubit, I would say most scientists would dispute that,” Lee said. “They are far from having a working qubit.”In the meantime, some are concerned that the back and forth on the topic within the field could cast a shadow on future developments in topological quantum computing.“I just wish they were a bit more careful with their claims because I fear that if they don’t measure up to what they are saying, there might be a backlash at some point where people say, ‘You promised us all these fancy things and where are they now?’” Molignini said. “That might damage the entire quantum community, not just themselves.”Read moreabout technologyElizabeth Hlavinka is a staff writer at Salon covering health and drugs. 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