[cohomologo]

The connection with quantum information (the theme of research at Station Q) is through the many-body localization (MBL) aspect of this system. These are phases that store quantum information at finite temperature. Normal quantum systems thermalize and lose any information of their initial state. (Actually, the information spreads chaotically throughout the system and becomes hard to retrieve, so its effectively lost.) In MBL systems, the information does not spread, and the system does not thermalize. You can read the information of the initial state back out after waiting a long time.

[selimthegrim]

Furthermore, I can assure you Microsoft isn't the only big tech company interested in 'useless things' like MBL for protecting quantum information.