Microsoft opens Maryland quantum hub, gives DARPA on-site access

Microsoft has opened a quantum computing research centre in Maryland that will give the US Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency (DARPA) direct, on-site access to its latest hardware, the company said.

The facility, located in the University of Maryland's Discovery District near Washington, D.C., was set up with the university and other industry partners. It will house a quantum system built around Microsoft's Majorana 2 chip, which DARPA will test and evaluate independently.

Quantum computers are seen as capable of solving problems that would take conventional machines thousands of years. For national security specialists, a key area of interest is the protection and breaking of encrypted communications.

Microsoft is among several quantum firms being assessed by DARPA under an effort to determine whether any quantum computing approach can produce economically viable systems by 2033. Until now, the agency evaluated Microsoft's technology remotely, using machines in Redmond, Washington, and Europe.

The Maryland installation marks a move to physical access, with a dedicated DARPA space where its experts can load hardware and run it through their own boot sequences.

"This is a big deal for us because it essentially enables DARPA to kick the tires and to sort of figure out how good this machine is and how it's performing," Zulfi Alam, corporate vice president of Microsoft Quantum, said in an interview.

Alam said the arrangement brings discipline as Microsoft shifts from research towards a commercial product. DARPA's main evaluation metric is whether the value of the computation a quantum system performs outweighs its cost.

"It enforces a certain amount of engineering rigor that scientific teams normally do not have," he said, describing DARPA as "a completely trusted organization" with which Microsoft can share current work and future plans.

Alam said DARPA will begin with the Majorana 2 chip, but the Maryland system is being designed to accept future chips Microsoft is developing. The company has said it plans to have commercial quantum systems ready by 2029.