Microsoft is moving closer to quantum computing supremacy with its Majorana 1 chip, a development that could change cybersecurity forever. 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.
This all comes down to Microsoft’s new topoconductor material, which enables a type of quantum computing that scales far beyond anything possible today. The company says its Topological Core architecture will allow quantum machines to reach a million qubits. That’s great news for industries hoping to solve complex problems, but 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’s approach has been risky, but a recent Nature paper confirms it has successfully created and measured the exotic quantum states needed to make 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.
The implications are staggering. The systems that safeguard everything from online banking to classified intelligence are built on encryption that quantum computing could soon render useless. Microsoft is also working with Quantinuum and Atom Computing to accelerate quantum research, and its Azure Quantum platform already offers quantum computing tools. But when a million-qubit system arrives, the world’s digital security could be at risk.
Microsoft insists that quantum computing will be used to benefit humanity — helping to develop new materials, tackle pollution, and revolutionize medicine. But the reality is that whoever controls quantum supremacy will have an unprecedented ability to break encryption, exposing sensitive data worldwide.
The race to quantum computing is no longer just about innovation — it’s about control. And once Majorana 1 reaches its full potential, cybersecurity as we know it may never be the same.
