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.

There isn't yet a roadmap to show Microsoft can scale its chip to the million topological qubits required to make a working quantum computer.

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.