The processor uses qubits that can be measured without error and are resistant to outside interference, which the company says marks a “transformative leap toward practical quantum computing.”

The tech giant joins Google and IBM in predicting that a fundamental change in computing technology is much closer than recently believed. Microsoft on Wednesday unveiled a new chip that it said showed quantum computing is “years,

Microsoft’s new “topological qubit” is not based on a solid, liquid or gas. It is another phase of matter that many experts did not think was possible.