Microsoft on Wednesday unveiled a new chip that it said showed quantum computing is "years, not decades" away, joining Google and IBM in predicting that a fundamental change in computing technology is much closer than recently believed.

Microsoft on Wednesday announced Majorana 1, its first quantum computing chip. The achievement comes after the company has spent nearly two decades of research in the field.

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.