#quantumtools

The latest Quantum Tools from Microsoft accelerate the shift to reliable logical computing.

Quantum Tools

Microsoft has expanded its Azure Quantum platform with powerful new development tools to bridge the gap between experimental hardware and fault-tolerant quantum computers. Microsoft is becoming the dominant supplier of hardware and software to help the industry switch from error-prone physical qubits to reliable logical qubits.

Microsoft's latest Quantum Development Kit (QDK), an open-source toolkit for building and executing quantum code, is crucial to this revelation. By quickly incorporating these tools into researcher ecosystems like GitHub Copilot and Visual Studio Code, Microsoft intends to simplify quantum development for more scientists and engineers.

Modern QDK-powered AI code

Microsoft anticipates the new QDK's extensive integration with GitHub Copilot and ability to run locally on laptops to simplify setup for beginners. A VS Code addon lets developers use breakpoint debugging, IntelliSense, Python, and Jupyter.

AI-assisted coding speeds quantum hardware task submissions and unit test generation. Researchers need advanced visualization tools like resource estimation, circuit design, and histograms from the QDK to understand and enhance their quantum algorithms before deployment. Q#, OpenQASM, Qiskit, and Cirq, the most popular quantum frameworks, are interoperable, ensuring that the QDK will remain versatile for a variety of development needs.

Changing Quantum Chemistry

Chemists designed the QDK for chemistry to solve molecular modeling problems, one of the platform's biggest innovations. Before quantum computers to solve complex scientific issues, they must be simplified and optimized for existing technology.

The QDK for chemistry combines cutting-edge quantum algorithms with top classical chemical approaches to deliver an end-to-end solution. Classical preprocessing helps researchers reduce problem size while maintaining chemical precision. Chemistry-aware quantum algorithms can cut gate counts from thousands to a few digits, substantially reducing circuit depth.

Guillermo García-Pérez, Chief Scientific Officer and Co-founder of Algorithmiq, commended the groundbreaking modular architecture as a “game changer” for the community. The toolkit includes native VS Code modifications for real-time molecular orbital visualization and automated processes with Hamiltonian generation and active space selection pipelines.

Roadmap for Error Correction

Microsoft is also making its quantum error correcting tools public. These tools are needed to build logical qubits for reliable, long-term processing. QDK now includes open-source modules for debugging, validating, and characterizing quantum programs.

Researchers now have customizable notebook samples and target runtime-specific encoding and decoding methods. The first modules are available, but Microsoft plans to release the entire tools suite in 2026. Microsoft is sharing its extensive history of internal research with the quantum community through this endeavor.

Magne and Azure Quantum Platform

Microsoft Quantum, which includes AI, high-performance computing, quantum hardware, and Azure software, relies on the QDK. An advanced qubit-virtualization architecture and quantum operating system allow customers to centrally manage and monitor quantum devices.

Microsoft is co-designing Magne, to be the world's most powerful quantum computer. Microsoft's quantum engine controls Magne, which uses neutral-atom qubits and was created with Atom Computing. QuNorth, a Nordic quantum initiative, will unveil Magne's characteristics in Copenhagen on January 26, 2026.

Microsoft is working with qBraid and other academic institutions to train Nordic developers on this new hardware. The regional ecosystem can set new quantum innovation norms thanks to these materials, created for application engineers and error correction researchers.

Conclusion: Flexible Future

Matthias Troyer, Technical Fellow and Corporate Vice President of Quantum at Microsoft, said the goal is to equip researchers with their tools, now with AI-assisted capabilities and deep circuit introspection. With cutting-edge hardware like Magne and open-source software like the QDK, Microsoft hopes to solve even the hardest scientific problems.

UChicago receives $21 million for a quantum engineering and health facility.

The Berggren Centre

The University of Chicago Berggren Centre for Quantum Biology and Medicine will launch a major research endeavour. On June 5, 2025, philanthropist Thea Berggren contributed £16.7 million ($21 million) to this historic project. In order to change the future of medicine, the centre is well-positioned to create a new discipline that blends biological research with quantum technology.

The Berggren Centre uses quantum engineering to peek into the human body in unprecedented ways. Our goal is to unlock previously unattainable insights into biology and illness to develop groundbreaking new medicines and diagnostics.

“The founding of the Berggren Centre is a testament to a strong belief: that the most profound scientific discoveries often arise when we combine disparate fields in daring new ways,” said University of Chicago president Paul Alivisatos. He added that the center's work could change how we view health and illness by combining medicine and quantum engineering.

The centre will benefit from the University's strengths in clinical care, biomedical research, and quantum science due to its position at the prestigious UChicago Pritzker School of Molecular Engineering (UChicago PME). UChicago PME dean Nadya Mason stressed the center's role in bringing together academics from different departments to set a new standard for patient care. For her creative approach to human health, she thanked Thea Berggren.

The Berggren Centre was founded to promote a new generation of “bilingual scholars” skilled in quantum physics and medicinal research:

Develop innovative quantum instruments for biomedical applications.

Scientists and engineers, these experts can practically apply quantum advances. The generous grant will fund workshops, fellowships, and conferences for multidisciplinary researchers to build an international quantum biology and medicine community. This pledge includes continuous help and endowment monies for sustainability.

This creative endeavour is already being led by UChicago scholars. Professor Alexander T. Pearson, Assistant Professor Peter Maurer, and Professor Aaron Esser-Kahn of Immunoengineering, for instance, are working together to develop quantum-enabled IDs that can track individual immune cells in real time. Thousands of cells could be monitored at once by this technique, providing fresh perspectives on cancer and inflammation and facilitating more individualised, targeted therapy.

The center’s goal is to make sure that quantum innovations are successfully transferred from the lab bench to the patient’s bedside. Using UChicago Medicine’s capabilities in clinical care and biomedical research, this will be accomplished. To create a workforce that can diagnose and treat diseases in new ways, Executive Vice President for Medical Affairs Mark Anderson says the centre will support cutting-edge educational initiatives, including a quantum pathway for aspiring and practicing physician-scientists.

The Berggren Centre will be co-directed by Julian Solway, a professor of medicine and the founding head of the Institute for Translational Medicine, and Greg Engel, a professor in the Department of Chemistry and at UChicago PME. Engel and Solway have previously worked together through the NSF Quantum Leap Challenge Institute for Quantum Sensing for Biophysics and Bioengineering (QuBBE), which seeks to create quantum imaging instruments that go beyond the bounds of classical approaches. With a particular emphasis on increasing clinical effect, the new centre will expand on this basis.

“It’s no easy task to integrate quantum physics and medicine, but it leads to tools and discoveries we never imagined possible,” Engel, whose work focusses on novel approaches to monitor, quantify, and manipulate quantum dynamics, said. In order to better human health, he thinks this gift will help bring together two very different scientific cultures. According to Solway, who has devoted his professional life to creating cooperative structures that would speed up medical research, the Berggren Centre is the next step forward in translational science. Quantum physicists, engineers, and physicians are collaborating to develop a new scientific language that could revolutionise our understanding and management of illness.

When Berggren visited the Atacama Desert, the idea for his present came to him. As she talked to astronomers who were motivated by the idea that quantum mechanics might help shape our future knowledge of the universe, she wondered about another possibility: What if the same quantum concepts were used to explain cellular physiology and disease? Berggren identified the University of Chicago as the perfect location to realise this ambition, calling the potential to revolutionise medicine “extraordinary.”

Although biological systems have historically been believed to disturb delicate quantum states in warm, loud settings, new research indicates that biological entities may potentially take advantage of quantum processes. The center’s research will investigate these possibilities in an effort to find new quantum-biological mechanisms that may be altered to provide therapeutic effects.

A worldwide understanding that the intersection of quantum science and health is a crucial area for 21st-century research is in line with the lofty objectives of the Berggren Centre. By fusing basic biological enquiries with quantum-enabled technology, UChicago hopes to empower researchers and clinicians, resulting in more accurate medicines, earlier disease detection, and ultimately, revolutionary patient care.

The Berggren Center’s founding represents a turning point in the fusion of medicine and physics. The centre will host quantum-enabled therapeutic discoveries thanks to inventive philanthropy, cutting-edge expertise, and strong institutional backing. By emphasising multidisciplinary interaction, training, and clinical translation, it establishes a new framework for bringing together scientific fields to address health challenges and ushers in quantum mechanical precision medicine.