Scientists have achieved a significant breakthrough in quantum computing, significantly enhancing the reliability of error-corrected qubits, marking a crucial step towards the realization of fault-tolerant quantum computers. By employing a revolutionary technique termed ‘active syndrome extraction,’ researchers successfully constructed four logical qubits from 30 physical ones, running 14,000 experiments without detecting a single error.
Quantum bits, or qubits, are inherently prone to errors due to their inherent noise. However, the creation of logical qubits, which are collections of entangled physical qubits, offers a promising solution by dispersing information across multiple locations, thus reducing points of failure during computations.
Published on April 2 in the arXiv preprint server, the study showcased experiments performed on four logical qubits generated from 30 physical qubits within the H2 quantum processor developed by Quantinuum. The collaboration between Quantinuum and Microsoft researchers yielded error-free operations, underscoring the potential of this technology.
The ultimate goal is to integrate this advancement into a hybrid supercomputer featuring 100 reliable logical qubits, providing organizations with a significant scientific advantage, as highlighted by Microsoft’s EVP for strategic missions and technologies in a recent blog post.
Addressing a critical challenge in scaling quantum computers, the exceedingly high error rates of qubits are mitigated with this breakthrough. While conventional computing bits exhibit error rates of 1 in 1 billion billion, physical qubits typically experience an error rate of 1 in 100 during quantum circuit experiments. In contrast, the new logical qubits demonstrate a remarkable improvement, boasting an error rate of just 1 in 100,000.
The achievement of this improvement is attributed to the implementation of ‘active syndrome extraction’ on Quantinuum’s ion-trap qubits and quantum computing architecture. This innovative technique enables real-time error diagnosis and correction without compromising logical qubits, thereby enhancing computational stability.
Microsoft’s representatives herald this research as a transition to “Level 2” quantum computing, characterized by low-error quantum hardware scalable for reliable problem-solving. This advancement marks a departure from the current “noisy intermediate-scale quantum” (NISQ) machines towards the aspiration of Level 3 machines and the attainment of “quantum supremacy.”
In conclusion, the development of error-corrected qubits with significantly enhanced reliability represents a crucial milestone in the evolution of quantum computing, bringing the realization of fault-tolerant quantum computers one step closer.
