Microsoft Accused of Fraud with Quantum Chip on Undiscovered Particles, but Company Ready to Defend Majorana 1

On March 16, the American Physical Society (APS) conference will begin, where heated debates are expected about the quantum processor Majorana 1 developed by Microsoft on particles not discovered by physicists – Majorana fermions. All of Microsoft’s work on the development was so dubious that a number of physicists openly accused the company of fraud. The scientific community is eagerly awaiting the APS conference and recommends stocking up on popcorn.

Image source: Microsoft

Microsoft’s claims of a quantum processor breakthrough came in February, when the company announced that its own scientists had created “the world’s first topconductor, a revolutionary type of material that allows Majorana particles to be detected and controlled to create more robust and scalable qubits, the building blocks of quantum computers.”

Since Majorana fermions have not yet been detected by any physicists, many scientists have dismissed Microsoft’s claims of a quantum breakthrough as “unreliable” and “essentially fraudulent.” At the same time, the company insists that it did everything right and will soon share even more impressive results, in particular at the upcoming APS conference. The company does not explain why this was not done immediately.

One of Microsoft’s arguments is that the article was submitted for publication in March 2024, but was published in February 2025, even though the practice of revising articles is widespread and no one prevented them from making edits before publication.

Microsoft has made big claims about Majorana particles before, but they have not ended well: in 2021, the Redmond researchers retracted the 2018 paper in which they claimed to have discovered the particles. The new paper is also riddled with gaps and inaccuracies, which experts began to point out after the publication in Nature. The company promises to give a detailed response to the criticism at the APS conference from March 16 to 21.

Henry Legg, a lecturer in theoretical physics at the University of St Andrews in the UK, recently published a critical review as a preprint on arXiv.org, arguing that the software giant’s work is “unreliable and requires re-examination.”

Vincent Mourik, an experimental physicist at Germany’s national research organisation Forschungszentrum Jülich, and Sergey Frolov, a professor of physics and astronomy at the University of Pittsburgh in the US, used YouTube to criticise the “distractions caused by Microsoft Quantum’s unreliable scientific claims”.

In an interview with The Register, Frolov went further: “These concerns have been around for quite some time, so [the community reaction] was not just about the announcement itself. It was made in such an evocative manner that I think it provoked a reaction, but [didn’t change] the basic understanding that this is, at its core, a fraudulent project.” Frolov explained his strong negative attitude toward the discovery by saying that “this is a supposed technology based on fundamental physical laws that have not been established.” “So it’s quite a serious problem,” the scientist said.

Frolov also said that Microsoft had already shared the data with select researchers a few weeks ago ahead of the APS meeting next week, and that did not bolster the confidence of the scientists invited to the event in the company’s claims. “I wasn’t there, but I talked to a few people who were there… and they weren’t thrilled, and there was a lot of criticism,” he said.

The physicist is confident that next week’s APS meeting will not resolve the issue for two reasons. First, he believes that Microsoft has misunderstood the science: “As a physicist, I can tell you that this qubit they are talking about simply cannot work because a topological qubit requires Majorana particles, and without Majorana particles it cannot exist.”

«If all your Majorana results are scrutinized and criticized, then it will not be a topological qubit in any case. This leaves only one option: it is… an unreliable demonstration. And that is why I am talking about fraud, because at the moment I have no other words,” Frolov continues his reasoning.

The professor believes that the format of the APS conference next week will not allow for a thorough examination of Microsoft’s claims. In a letter to the APS, he criticizes the organizers for not inviting Microsoft critics to speak. The letter also calls on the APS to disclose information about payments received from Microsoft and to notify conference participants of the community’s concerns regarding the software giant’s claims. The author of the letter also wants Microsoft to share comprehensive data about its research so that corrections can be made if necessary.

Henry Legg’s criticism stems from his belief that Microsoft relies on tests that don’t work. “There are a lot of problems with this so-called topological gap protocol,” Legg explained. “And ultimately, it doesn’t provide any information about the actual physics that’s going on in these devices. It ends up being sensitive to things like measurement ranges.” The physicist says the company uses different measurement ranges in different papers, which it doesn’t explain in its latest paper. He also notes inconsistencies in Microsoft papers over the years.

«”They had a definition of a topological [state], and then they changed it,” he said. “They basically turned it into something that is almost meaningless, and certainly meaningless when it comes to making a topological qubit.”

The problem Microsoft faced, Legg explained, is similar to the one that led the company’s researchers to retract their 2018 paper. He said that was necessary because the behavior described in it was not evidence of Majorana particles, but merely a description of a flaw in the system.

«The point is that the systems they are looking at are still just as messy, and the quality of the devices hasn’t improved. The only thing that has improved is the quality of the PR campaign, or at least the level of the claims they make. And I would say that almost everyone in the field [of science] agrees with that,” the scientist defends his position.

Microsoft promises to give a detailed response at the upcoming conference, continuing to insist that they adhere to a scientific approach and that there were no complaints from reviewers and the editors of Nature.