Microsoft and Quantinuum have reported a major breakthrough in quantum error correction. By combining Quantinuum's ion-trap technology with Microsoft's revolutionary qubit-virtualization approach, the cooperation was able to complete over 14,000 trials correctly. This achievement is crucial because it allows for the detection and rectification of faults in logical qubits while preserving their integrity.
This discovery marks a shift away from the noisy intermediate scale quantum (NISQ) period, which was typified by systems that were sensitive to tiny environmental changes, resulting in unpredictability and limited to a few thousand qubits. The potential of quantum computing is enormous, as a qubit, unlike a classical bit, can be in several states at the same time until measured.
In their technical paper, the scientists explain how they used Quantinuum's H2 trapped-ion processor to turn 30 physical qubits into four strong logical qubits. This encoding method improves error protection through entanglement, making it easier to detect and rectify errors in physical qubits while leaving logical qubits intact.
Error correction has been a big roadblock in moving beyond the NISQ period. Improving the quality and lowering the noise of physical qubits is critical, because without sophisticated error correction, quantum systems will continue to decohere. Dennis Tom and Krysta Svore of Microsoft stressed that improving the operating quality of physical qubits, along with a specialized architecture, can result in powerful, fault-tolerant quantum computers capable of completing complicated computations.
The achievement demonstrates a substantial step forward in lowering the difference between logical and physical qubit error rates, with up to a 800x improvement over employing exclusively physical qubits. The capacity to actively repair faults without destroying logical qubits is a significant milestone in quantum error correction, exhibiting the system's low logical error rate after numerous rounds of syndrome extraction.
This achievement is expected to spur further development and acceptance of comparable error correction approaches in the quantum computing community. Ilyas Khan of Quantinuum complimented the collaboration's contribution in advancing the quantum ecosystem, expressing enthusiasm for the future of quantum applications and the transition to scalable quantum processors.
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