Microsoft today introduced Majorana 1, the world’s first quantum chip powered by a new Topological Core architecture that it expects will realize quantum computers capable of solving meaningful, industrial-scale problems in years, not decades.

Infleqtion, the world’s leading quantum information company, today announced the world’s first demonstration of a materials science application powered by logical qubits. Leveraging the NVIDIA CUDA-Q platform, the demonstration, conducted in collaboration with the University of Chicago and the University of Wisconsin, achieved a 6x boost in application-level computational accuracy. This marks a transformative step forward in quantum computing and showcasing the technology’s potential to tackle otherwise intractable computational challenges, such as the design of next-generation materials.

In an article published September 23, 2024 in the journal Physical Review A, JQI researchers proposed a way to use the physics of superconducting junctions to let each function as more than one qubit. They also outlined a method to use the new qubit design in quantum simulations. While these proposed qubits might not immediately replace their more established peers, they illustrate the rich variety of quantum physics that remains to be explored and harnessed in the field.

The U.S. Department of Energy Advanced Research Projects Agency-Energy (ARPA-E) today announced funding to pioneer a new approach to studying chemistry and materials. The Quantum Computing for Computational Chemistry (QC3) program aims to develop quantum algorithms to revolutionize diverse areas of energy research, such as designing new and sustainable industrial catalysts, discovering new superconductors for more efficient electricity transmission, and developing improved battery chemistries.

An international team from LMU, Harvard University and the Institute of Materials Science in Japan has successfully demonstrated the detection of individual photons in the infrared spectrum by utilizing a revolutionary material called magic-angle twisted bilayer graphene. This discovery represents a significant step towards extending superconducting single-photon detection to longer-wavelength photons. The results are featured in Science Advances.

Scientists from the U.S. Department of Energy’s (DOE) Brookhaven National Laboratory have shown that a type of qubit whose architecture is more amenable to mass production can perform comparably to qubits currently dominating the field. With a series of mathematical analyses, the scientists have provided a roadmap for simpler qubit fabrication that enables robust and reliable manufacturing of these quantum computer building blocks.

Fujitsu Limited and the Center for Quantum Information and Quantum Biology at Osaka University (QIQB) today announced the joint development of two new technologies for the space-time efficient analog rotation quantum computing architecture that will accelerate the realization of practical quantum computing.

Researchers at QuTech have found a way to make Majorana particles in a two-dimensional plane. This was achieved by creating devices that exploit the combined material properties of superconductors and semiconductors. The inherent flexibility of this new 2D platform should allow one to perform experiments with Majoranas that were previously inaccessible. The results are published in Nature.

The Engineering and Physical Sciences Research Council (EPSRC) awards 11 emerging UK research leaders with a Quantum Technology Career Acceleration Fellowship.

Using artificial intelligence, scientists can now identify complex quantum phases in materials in just minutes—a process that used to take months. The breakthrough, published in Newton, could significantly speed up research into quantum materials, particularly low dimensional superconductors. The study, a collaboration between Yale and Emory University, was seeded by a multi-institute collaboration initiative three years ago. Yale’s side of the research, led by Jinming Yang, a graduate research assistant, and Yu He, assistant professor of Yale’s Department of applied physics, was initiated under a Yale Materials Research Science and Engineering Centers (MRSEC) internal preparatory project awarded in 2022. Other senior authors include Fang Liu and Yao Wang, assistant professors in Emory’s Department of Chemistry.