Microsoft says new quantum chip 1,000 times more reliable than predecessor

Microsoft says its new quantum chip is vastly more reliable than its previous version, paving the way for a quantum computer solving commercially useful problems within three years.

At the heart of quantum computing are qubits, which offer the promise of answering questions that defeat today's machines, but are notoriously delicate and unstable.

Microsoft says the qubits on Majorana 2, its new chip, survive for an average of 20 seconds, rather than the milliseconds of Majorana 1.

That means the new chip is 1,000 times more reliable - an improvement in performance the tech giant compares to the difference between a phone that needs charging every day to one which needs charging every few years.

"We will have a quantum machine in 2029 that can solve commercially viable, reasonable problems", said Zulfi Alam, corporate vice president of Microsoft Quantum.

That would still require huge further advances as such a device would require millions of qubits - the current chip, Alam said, has 12.

Assessing the firm's claims are difficult because it does not release the full details of what it has discovered publicly, citing commercial confidentiality.

There is a worldwide race to develop the technology, given its potential to take on tasks currently considered too enormous for even the most powerful traditional computers.