Microsoft CEO Says Azure Quantum Will Address the Big Challenges in Computing

(Finance.Yahoo) Microsoft CEO Satya Nadella has takenthe wraps off Azure Quantum, a full-stack, cloud-based approach to quantum computing that he said would play well with traditional computational architectures.
A private preview of Azure Quantum is due to be launched in the coming months, with the Microsoft Quantum Network serving as the primary point of contact for developers and startups. “We’ll have a variety of hardware solutions that are all going to be open in Azure,” Nadella said.
Microsoft’s hardware partners include IonQ and Honeywell, which are working on quantum computing systems based on trapped ions; as well as Quantum Circuits Inc., which uses Lego-like assemblies of superconducting circuits.
End-to-end quantum computing based on Microsoft’s topological qubit architecture may not yet be ready for prime time, but Nadella highlighted a “quantum on classical” approach, in which quantum tools are used alongside classical computation to optimize the algorithms for simulating complex phenomena.