♦ Microsoft unveiled a new quantum computing chip named Majorana 1, that can potentially fit a million qubits.

♦ Though this chip currently holds 8 topological qubits, it is a first of its kind to have a significant scalability runway.

♦ Key to its versatile architecture is the creation of a new material, made from indium arsenide and aluminium.

♦ Unlike traditional quantum chips, which rely on electron-based qubits, Majorana 1 has been built using a completely new kind of material and particle, the Majorana particle.

♦ Microsoft says the chip is so powerful that it can be scaled to a million qubits while being tiny enough that it can fit in the palm of your hand.

♦ Microsoft’s Majorana 1 has been in the works for nearly two decades and relies on a subatomic particle called the Majorana fermion whose existence was first theorized in the 1930s.

♦ That particle has properties that make it less prone to the errors that plague quantum computers, but it has been hard for physicists to find and control.

♦ The chip was fabricated at Microsoft labs in Washington state and Denmark.