Microsoft started going down this road nearly 20 years ago, and that research has now yielded what looks like a significant quantum-computing breakthrough. The Majorana 1 chip contains eight qubits, or quantum bits, far fewer than top-tier quantum computers currently in operation.

Microsoft claims that building its first quantum-computing chip required that it create a new state of matter, which it is referring to as a topological state.

The newly termed “topoconductor,” Majorana 1, is designed to support large qubit data processing for a future quantum computer.