Microsoft has opened a 15,000-square-foot quantum research center at the University of Maryland, including a dedicated room where DARPA (U.S. defense research agency) can independently boot and test Microsoft's topological qubit hardware. The change gives DARPA direct on-site control rather than access filtered through Microsoft facilities in Redmond, Washington, and Europe. The evaluation is significant because scientists remain divided over whether Microsoft's devices produce Majorana zero modes, which could support error-resistant quantum computing, or topologically trivial Andreev modes. Microsoft's June 2026 Majorana 2 paper published Z-parity measurements but not the combined X-and-Z parity evidence viewed as necessary to establish topological qubit identity. The hardware uses a lead-based tetron design and has reported mean qubit lifetimes of 20 seconds, compared with 1 to 12 milliseconds for Majorana 1. DARPA's US2QC evaluation team, involving the Air Force Research Laboratory, Johns Hopkins University Applied Physics Laboratory and four national laboratories, is assessing whether Microsoft's approach can support utility-scale quantum computing by 2033. Microsoft says Majorana 2 puts it on track for a commercially useful quantum computer by 2029. The Maryland center also includes a quantum hardware makerspace, postdoctoral positions and workshops focused on measurement-based quantum computing, while strengthening Maryland's public-private quantum development strategy.