The fruity cargo cult of Redmond plans to strut its quantum stuff at the APS Global Physics Summit next week, where it will no doubt try to defend its Majorana 1 chip and the so-called "topoconductor" that’s supposedly revolutionising quantum computing.

However, University of Pittsburgh physics professor Sergey Frolov isn’t having any of it, calling the whole thing "essentially a fraudulent project."  

For those who came in late, Vole claims to have nailed a way to use Majorana fermions—odd little particles that are their own antiparticles—to make qubits more stable. Majorana particles were first theorised in 1937 but detecting them has proved difficult. Yet Microsoft told the world it not only observed Majorana particles but had learned how to put them to work in a machine packing eight topological qubits.

Vole claims that this "topoconductor" material allows the chip to control these particles, making quantum computing more scalable and reliable. That sounds great, except some boffins aren’t convinced that the physics behind it holds up. 

But Frolov explains: "This is a piece of alleged technology that is based on basic physics that has not been established. So this is a pretty big problem…

"If all your Majorana results are scrutinised and criticised, there is absolutely no way this will be a topological qubit. That leaves one option that it's… an unreliable presentation. And that's why I say fraud because I'm out of other words to use."

Frolov isn't alone in his scepticism. Dr Henry Legg, a theoretical physics lecturer from St Andrews, has been picking apart Microsoft's claims, arguing that its definitions are dodgy, its measurement ranges inconsistent, and the whole thing is built on shaky ground.

Legg said Microsoft's topological claims rest on a 2023 paper that uses a different measurement range, that the code used in this 2023 paper differs from Vole’s own, and that the company changed the definition of "topological."

Microsoft researcher Chetan Nayak isn’t having it, swatting away the criticism with a rather defensive "we always analyse the full data" and other carefully worded retorts. 

Vole’s paper passed peer review, but whether that means anything, when big tech bucks are involved, is another matter. If its claims are overblown, it won’t be the first time a tech giant’s marketing team has outpaced its engineering department.