Microsoft’s Majorana 1 quantum chip could break encryption and expose your data to hackers

Microsoft is moving closer to quantum computing supremacy with the arrival of its new Majorana 1 chip, a development which could potentially have a far-reaching impact on cybersecurity. While the Windows-maker touts this as progress, the reality is far more concerning. The encryption that protects banking transactions, government data, and personal communications could soon be worthless.

Microsoft's advancement comes down to Microsoft’s new topoconductor material, which enables a type of quantum computing that scales far beyond anything possible today. “We took a step back and said ‘OK, let’s invent the transistor for the quantum age. What properties does it need to have?’” said Chetan Nayak, Microsoft technical fellow. “And that’s really how we got here -- it’s the particular combination, the quality and the important details in our new materials stack that have enabled a new kind of qubit and ultimately our entire architecture.”

The tech giant’s approach in quantum has been risky, but a recent Nature paper confirms it has successfully created and measured the exotic quantum states needed to make all this work. The company already has eight qubits on a chip designed to scale to a million, and it has now been selected by DARPA for the final phase of the US2QC program, which aims to develop the world’s first fault-tolerant quantum computer.

“From the start we wanted to make a quantum computer for commercial impact, not just thought leadership,” said Matthias Troyer, Microsoft technical fellow. “We knew we needed a new qubit. We knew we had to scale.”

“Whatever you’re doing in the quantum space needs to have a path to a million qubits. If it doesn’t, you’re going to hit a wall before you get to the scale at which you can solve the really important problems that motivate us,” Nayak adds. “We have actually worked out a path to a million.

Quantum advancement is obviously great news for industries hoping to solve complex problems, but it's also a nightmare for cybersecurity. Current encryption methods rely on the limitations of classical computers. A quantum machine of this scale wouldn’t just break them -- it would obliterate them.

Microsoft insists that quantum computing will be used to benefit humanity -- helping to develop new materials, tackle pollution, revolutionize medicine, and so on. But the reality is that whoever controls quantum supremacy will also have an unprecedented ability to break encryption, exposing sensitive data worldwide.