• by Laurie Sullivan , Staff Writer @lauriesullivan, February 20, 2025

Microsoft this week released information on its Majorana 1 chip -- the first processor based on an experimental technology -- which the company believes will drive a new path for quantum computing. 

The chip is powered by a new Topological Core architecture that Microsoft engineers expect will realize quantum computers capable of solving meaningful, industrial-scale problems in years, not decades.

This is part of Microsoft's longest-running research project. The company took a subatomic particle that has only been theorized until now to create a new material and architecture for quantum computing. 

Microsoft said it combines science and art to solve previously unsolvable problems. With AI becoming so much a part of the advertising industry, quantum computing will become a necessary technology because of the speed and quantity of data being collected, analyzed, processed and used.

Its quantum chip leverages the world’s first topoconductor, a type of material that can observe and control Majorana particles, or “hypothetical” particles, to produce more reliable and scalable qubits, which are the building blocks for quantum computers.

These particles are theoretical -- scientists believe they may exist based on current physics theories, but they have not yet been experimentally observed or confirmed.

Google launched Willow in December, but at the time the advertising industry had not yet realized what this meant for media buying, ad serving and personalization. I wonder if they do now.

What does this mean for advertisers? For starters, it will allow them to find the correct answers to questions much more rapidly and in less space.

The new architecture used to develop the Majorana 1 processor will fit one million qubits on one chip that can fit in the palm of someone’s hand, the company said.  All the world’s current computers operating together can’t do what a one-million-qubit quantum computer will be able to do. 

A qubit or quantum bit is the basic unit of information in quantum computing. It's the way data is stored and processed. Qubits are similar to bits in classical computing systems, but they behave differently, with faster processing due to quantum mechanics. "Bits" are the basic units of information in classical computing systems that can only appear in either a 0 or a 1. The 0 and 1 are numbers that represent the data and way the computer stores information and then processes it in the computer.

“In the same way that the invention of semiconductors made today’s smartphones, computers and electronics possible, topoconductors and the new type of chip they enable offer a path to developing quantum systems that can scale to a million qubits and are capable of tackling the most complex industrial and societal problems,” Microsoft wrote in a blog post.

It's a highly complex, geeky subject, but think ahead. Quantum will allow engineers, scientists, companies and others to simply design things right the first time, which includes advertising systems and ad units.

Combined with AI tools, the technology will allow someone to describe what kind of system they want in plain language and get an answer that works the first time.