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 started going down this road nearly 20 years ago, and that research has now yielded what looks like a significant quantum-computing breakthrough. The Majorana 1 chip contains eight qubits, or quantum bits, far fewer than top-tier quantum computers currently in operation.

Quantum computing stocks advanced on Thursday after Microsoft launched a new chip that indicated the technology is not "decades away" as stated by the top boss of AI chip bellwether Nvidia.