Azure Quantum platform bringing cloud and AI together

Microsoft is ushering in a new era of computing on the path to unlocking scientific advantages and tackling some of the world’s most pressing challenges. This is why Microsoft is building Azure Quantum - to create the first platform for reliable quantum computing and achieve the vision of quantum at scale.

Microsoft announces the best performing logical qubits on record and will provide priority access to reliable quantum hardware in Azure Quantum platform

Microsoft has announced the best-performing logical qubits on record and will provide priority access to reliable quantum hardware on the Azure Quantum platform. In April, the company revealed it is entering the next phase for solving meaningful problems with reliable quantum computers by demonstrating the most reliable logical qubits, with an error rate 800x better than physical qubits. The primary issue with today’s noisy intermediate-scale quantum (NISQ) machines is that their physical qubits are too noisy and error-prone, making the machines impractical for real-world applications. This is why transitioning to reliable logical qubits, which combine multiple physical qubits to protect against noise and maintain coherence for long-running computations, is essential.

Quantum computing, however, does not exist in isolation; it requires deep integration with the power of the cloud. Leveraging the best of computing will unlock a new generation of hybrid quantum applications that could address pressing challenges, from pioneering sustainable energy solutions to transforming disease treatment with next-generation life-saving therapeutics.

The Azure Quantum compute platform is designed to provide quantum computing across various hardware architectures, enabling the most advanced hybrid quantum applications in the industry - all in a secure, unified, and scalable cloud environment to tackle classically intractable problems. This is Microsoft’s vision for Azure Quantum, and today, the company continues to make advances toward achieving it with industry-leading partners Quantinuum and Atom Computing. Together, they aim to bring best-in-class solutions to the Azure Quantum platform and collectively scale resilient quantum capabilities.

In collaboration with Quantinuum, Microsoft applied its improved qubit-virtualization system to create and entangle 12 highly reliable logical qubits. This marks the largest number of entangled logical qubits, with the highest fidelity, on record. These results scale logical qubit computation - on ion-trap hardware - within the Azure Quantum compute platform. Advancing toward scalable quantum computing requires not only reaching significant hardware milestones but also proving that these improvements can address practical, real-world challenges.

Microsoft demonstrated the first end-to-end chemistry simulation combining reliable logical quantum computation with cloud high-performance computing (HPC) and AI. These achievements would not have been possible without Quantinuum’s leading quantum machines, paving the way for practical solutions at the intersection of chemistry, physics, and life sciences.

Finally, as the Azure Quantum compute platform expands, Microsoft is excited to announce a collaboration with Atom Computing to build the world’s most powerful quantum machine. By integrating and advancing Atom Computing’s neutral-atom hardware into the Azure Quantum compute platform, Microsoft is bringing the best-in-class from its ecosystem to provide a reliable quantum machine for commercial use.

Combining the capabilities of this reliable quantum hardware with the Azure Elements platform for Science, Microsoft is providing a comprehensive discovery suite to achieve scientific quantum advantage.

Creating a new generation of hybrid quantum applications

Microsoft is pioneering a new computing paradigm by combining the power of the cloud and AI with quantum technology. The Azure Quantum compute platform enables the seamless execution of quantum applications that utilize hardware across a variety of qubit architectures and chips, while also offering integration with cloud HPC and AI. Over the past year, Microsoft has announced new breakthroughs and collaborations in pursuit of this mission, including offering Generative Chemistry and Accelerated DFT, and advancing the industry toward reliable quantum computing by demonstrating highly reliable logical qubits.

Microsoft is uniting these technologies in a purpose-built cloud platform that leverages the complementary strengths of AI for large-scale data processing and quantum for complex calculations with unprecedented accuracy. This robust compute foundation provides a secure, unified, and scalable hybrid computing environment, empowering innovators to develop best-in-class solutions for tackling problems that are difficult or even intractable on classical computers.

The platform integrates quantum hardware architectures from Microsoft's ecosystem partners with quantum control, processing, and error correction software—alongside capabilities for copilot-assisted workflows, developer tools, classical supercomputing, and multi-modal AI models. This differentiated computing stack is designed to pave the way for a new generation of hybrid applications. AI co-reasoning will assist in articulating problems and translating them into workflows, leveraging both classical and scalable quantum tools at the appropriate stages to generate impactful insights. This iterative approach aims to compress research and development timelines and reduce time-to-solution from years to days.

Continuing to implement reliable quantum computing with Quantinuum 

In collaboration with Quantinuum, Microsoft has announced the demonstration of the best-performing logical qubits on record, achieving the largest number of entangled logical qubits to date. By improving and optimizing its qubit-virtualization system for Quantinuum’s 56-physical-qubit H2 machine, Microsoft successfully created 12 logical qubits.

This achievement highlights Microsoft’s world-class expertise in error correction. In less than six months, the improved qubit-virtualization system tripled the number of reliable logical qubits. Moreover, when all 12 logical qubits were entangled in a complex state required for deeper quantum computation, they exhibited a 22x improvement in circuit error rates compared to the corresponding physical qubits.

"The ability of our systems to triple the number of logical qubits while less than doubling our physical qubits from 30 to 56 physical qubits is a testament to the high fidelities and all-to-all connectivity of our H-Series trapped-ion hardware. Our current H2-1 hardware combined with Microsoft’s qubit-virtualization system is bringing us and our customers fully into Level 2 resilient quantum computing. This powerful collaboration will unlock even greater advancements when combined with the cutting-edge AI and HPC tools delivered through Azure Quantum," said Rajeeb Hazra, CEO of Quantinuum.

As Microsoft continues to pursue scientific and industrial breakthroughs with quantum computers, noise remains the primary barrier. Previous insights have highlighted that increasing the number of physical qubits alone is insufficient to enable robust quantum error correction. As part of the quantum ecosystem, the focus must remain on improving both logical qubit counts and fidelity to establish a solid foundation for producing meaningful results. Achieving this will require advancements in both hardware and software, enabling longer and more reliable quantum applications. Today’s announcement demonstrates that these fundamental capabilities are possible on the path to large-scale quantum computing.

A true computing paradigm shift also necessitates a focus on practical and commercially relevant applications. Microsoft previously completed a chemistry simulation in the first end-to-end workflow that combined HPC, AI, and logical qubit computation to predict the ground state energy for a specific catalyst problem. This demonstration marked a critical step toward ushering in a new generation of hybrid applications, which will become increasingly impactful as quantum technologies scale. Quantum and AI are expected to have the earliest significant impact on scientific discovery, and Microsoft researchers have showcased the breakthrough potential of this integration. This achievement was made possible through the long-standing collaboration with Quantinuum, a leader in the quantum computing field.

Announcing a new commercial offering with Atom Computing

In collaboration with Atom Computing, Microsoft is excited to introduce a new generation of reliable quantum hardware for customers. By combining Microsoft’s enhanced qubit-virtualization system with Atom Computing’s neutral-atom hardware, the two companies have jointly generated logical qubits and are optimizing the system to enable reliable quantum computation. Together, they believe this new commercial offering will represent the world’s most powerful quantum machine on record, capable of scaling to scientific advantage and beyond.

Atom Computing’s hardware uniquely integrates essential capabilities for expanding quantum error correction, including large numbers of high-fidelity qubits, all-to-all qubit connectivity, long coherence times, and mid-circuit measurements with qubit reset and reuse. The company is developing second-generation systems with over 1,200 physical qubits and plans to increase the physical qubit count tenfold with each new hardware generation. By applying Microsoft’s state-of-the-art fault-tolerance protocols to this different qubit architecture, the Azure Quantum compute platform will offer a spectrum of best-in-class logical qubits across multiple hardware platforms, providing flexibility and future-proofing for customers’ investments.

The collaboration with Atom Computing aims to integrate these capabilities with Azure Elements, Microsoft’s purpose-built cloud platform that offers differentiated computing scale, state-of-the-art AI models for chemistry and materials science simulations, and Copilot. The goal is to empower governments and organizations to address scientifically and commercially relevant challenges using today’s most advanced computational solutions, including designing and predicting the properties of chemicals and materials, exploring molecular interactions, and simulating complex chemical reactions. Additionally, the partnership seeks to foster a quantum-ready ecosystem by providing critical tools necessary for the commercial adoption of these technologies, helping to build quantum expertise and create new job opportunities.

"We are excited to accelerate Atom Computing’s quantum capabilities with Microsoft as our partner. We believe that this collaboration uniquely positions us to scale and be first to reach scientific quantum advantage. Our neutral-atom technology is an ideal foundation for Microsoft’s leading qubit-virtualization capabilities, and we look forward to enabling fault tolerant, cutting-edge quantum applications for global innovators to use the best platform in the world," said Ben Bloom, PhD, Founder and CEO of Atom Computing .

Empowering customers with the best of quantum and AI

Microsoft aims to empower practitioners to unlock a new generation of applications that leverage the complementary strengths of quantum, classical supercomputing, and AI, all integrated within the Azure cloud.

The company remains committed to achieving quantum at scale to address commercially significant problems that are too complex for classical computers. As a platform company, it is crucial for Microsoft to continue investing in the quantum ecosystem and collaborating with industry leaders such as Quantinuum, Atom Computing, Photonic, and others to advance and scale quantum capabilities. In addition to these collaborations, Microsoft is focused on its own innovations, particularly with a topological qubit-based approach.

This approach provides a unique pathway for scaling up, featuring fast clock speeds, digital control, and more. A topological quantum computer has the potential to control over one million physical qubits on a single chip, allowing for faster information processing compared to other types of qubits. The Azure Quantum team has previously demonstrated the feasibility of this approach, and Microsoft looks forward to scaling it to the level of quantum supercomputing.