Microsoft's new chip creates a path to "solving some of the world’s most difficult problems," according to the tech giant.

Microsoft has outlined its research in a peer-reviewed paper published today in Nature, explaining how its researchers were able to create the topological qubit. Microsoft has helped create a new material made from indium arsenide and aluminum, and it has placed eight topological qubits on a chip that it hopes can eventually scale to 1 million.

Microsoft says it has developed a breakthrough quantum processor based on a new state of matter, giving it a clear path to achieve quantum computing’s long-term promise of solving some of the world’s most difficult problems.

Microsoft announced today that it has made significant progress in its 20-year quest to make topological quantum bits, or qubits—a special approach to building quantum computers