Microsoft announced a breakthrough in quantum computing - The Jerusalem Post
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Microsoft announced a breakthrough in quantum computingDuring the keynote address at Microsoft's Build developers conference, the company's CEO also announced a new quantum processor named Majorana 2.Follow us on GoogleMajorana 2, Microsoft's new quantum processor(photo credit: Microsoft)ByNIV LILIENJUNE 8, 2026 07:38The keynote address at Microsoft's developers conference was packed with speakers and announcements, led by the unveiling of wearable artificial intelligence developments called Project Solara, which we already covered here, but several other announcements also caught the eye.It was actually at the end of the presentation that Microsoft CEO Satya Nadella dropped a bombshell of sorts, a la "One more thing" in the style of Steve Jobs: The company announced a new quantum processor called Majorana 2, whose main innovation is that the qubits, the basic units of information–similar to the zeros and ones in conventional computers–maintain stability for 20 seconds and even up to a minute. This might not sound like much, but it represents an insane leap in the stability of quantum processors–until today, qubits lasted for mere fractions of a second, making this a thousandfold improvement that paves the way for full-scale quantum computing within just a few years. Dr. Tomer Simon, Chief Scientist of Microsoft Israel, predicts that this could happen within as little as three years.Between quantum processors and wearable artificial intelligence, Microsoft also showcased its new computer in action, the Surface Laptop Ultra, which is based on Nvidia's new artificial intelligence chip, the RTX Spark, instead of familiar processors, and demonstrated its insane capabilities such as locally running a model with 120 million parameters that occupied 99 gigabytes(!) out of the processor's 128 built-in gigabytes. At the moment, it appears that this super-powerful personal computer is intended primarily for developers and designers, and less for ordinary mortals.Microsoft further announced a series of developments in the field of artificial intelligence and its intelligent agents environment, including the integration of intelligent agents into environments like GitHub and the expansion of its security products, such as Defender and others, to also protect against the new dangers involved in operating intelligent agents that perform actions on computer systems on our behalf. Regarding this matter, Shimi Cohen, Chief Information Security Officer at UBTECH, notes that: "The evolution of autonomous AI agents requires chief information security officers to undergo a profound conceptual shift. An AI agent is no longer just code–it is a dynamic entity operating within the network, possessing identities, accessing sensitive information, and executing actions. To address this challenge, Microsoft has created a broad integration across all of its flagship tools," Cohen explains.See more ontechnology|Microsoft|new productsFollow us on Google