Microsoft Corp. announced its first quantum computing chip, a major step in the company’s effort to produce devices that might someday solve problems beyond the reach of modern computers.

Microsoft says it has developed a breakthrough quantum processor based on a new state of matter, giving it a clear path to achieve quantum computing’s long-term promise of solving some of the world’s most difficult problems.

The newly termed “topoconductor,” Majorana 1, is designed to support large qubit data processing for a future quantum computer.