Microsoft and Atom Computing will team up to make the world's most powerful quantum computer

Microsoft continues to be a major influence in the world of quantum computing research. In June 2024, it published its roadmap for the creation of a true quantum computer. Today, as part of the Quantum World Congress event, Microsoft made some quantum computing announcements, including a new partnership that it says will create the most powerful quantum machine ever.

In a post on the official Microsoft blog, the company says it is working with Atom Computer on the machine. It will combine Microsoft's enhanced qubit-virtualization system with Atom Computer's neutral-atom hardware. Microsoft says that it has already made logical qubits with this collaboration, and the two companies are working so the quantum machine can offer reliable quantum computing features and results.

The blog post stated:

Atom Computing’s hardware uniquely combines capabilities essential for expanding quantum error correction, including large numbers of high-fidelity qubits, all-to-all qubit connectivity, long coherence times and mid-circuit measurements with qubit reset and reuse. The company is building 2nd generation systems with over 1,200 physical qubits and plans to increase the physical qubit count tenfold with each new hardware generation.

The post adds that the Atom Computing hardware will also use Microsoft’s fault-tolerance protocols. This partnership is also designed to show that Microsoft's Azure Quantum platform can offer reliable logical qubits with a number of different hardware solutions. There's no word on when the Atom Computing machines with Microsoft's platform will be available for commercial use.

Back in April, Microsoft announced a quantum computer milestone with another hardware partner, Quantinuum. They were able to create reliable logical qubits that had an error rate of 800 times better than using physical qubits. Today, Microsoft announced that it worked again with Quantinuum to make 12 highly reliable logical qubits. Microsoft says that is the "largest number of entangled logical qubits, with the highest fidelity, on record." You can learn more about this new milestone in this separate blog post.