For years, the biggest hurdle in quantum computing has been scale. While quantum processors can already tackle complex simulations in chemistry, material science, and data security, most remain too small and fragile to be practical for large-scale applications.<\/p>\n
\u00a0A new study led by the University of California, Riverside, suggests that may be changing.<\/p>\n
Researchers demonstrated through simulations that multiple small quantum chips can be linked together into one functioning system even if the connections between them aren\u2019t flawless.<\/p>\n
The finding points to a path for building larger, fault-tolerant quantum computers sooner than expected.<\/p>\n
\u201cOur work isn\u2019t about inventing a new chip,\u201d said Mohamed A. Shalby, the paper\u2019s first author and a doctoral candidate in UCR\u2019s Department of Physics and Astronomy.<\/p>\n
\u201cIt\u2019s about showing that the chips we already have can be connected to create something much larger and still work. That\u2019s a foundational shift in how we build quantum systems.\u201d<\/p>\n
Scaling, in this context, means handling ever-larger amounts of data without breaking down. Fault tolerance refers to a system\u2019s ability to detect and correct errors automatically. Together, they form the backbone of reliable quantum computing.<\/p>\n
Chips linked, errors corrected<\/p>\n
In practice, connecting quantum chips has been difficult because links between separate processors tend to be noisy, especially when housed in different cryogenic refrigerators.<\/p>\n
\u201cConnections between separate chips \u2014 especially those housed in separate cryogenic refrigerators \u2014 are much noisier than operations within a single chip,\u201d Shalby explained. \u201cThis increased noise can overwhelm the system and prevent error correction from working properly.\u201d<\/p>\n
The UC Riverside-led team found, however, that even when inter-chip links were up to 10 times noisier than the chips themselves, the system could still detect and correct errors.<\/p>\n
\u201cThis means we don\u2019t have to wait for perfect hardware to scale quantum computers,\u201d Shalby said. \u201cWe now know that as long as each chip is operating with high fidelity, the links between them can be \u2018good enough\u2019 \u2014 not perfect \u2014 and we can still build a fault-tolerant system.\u201d<\/p>\n
Building reliable quantum systems<\/p>\n
The research highlights why simply counting qubits isn\u2019t enough.<\/p>\n
Individual \u201clogical\u201d qubits (the usable building blocks of quantum programs) \u00a0are created by combining hundreds or even thousands of physical qubits. This redundancy allows the system to correct errors that naturally creep in.<\/p>\n
One of the most effective techniques is the surface code, in which a quantum processor encodes logical qubits by detecting and fixing mistakes within its own architecture. Shalby\u2019s team simulated thousands of modular designs using this method, testing them across multiple levels of error and noise.<\/p>\n
The results suggest scalable, reliable quantum systems could be built using today\u2019s imperfect hardware.<\/p>\n
\u201cUntil now, most quantum milestones focused on increasing the sheer number of qubits,\u201d Shalby said. \u201cBut without fault tolerance, those qubits aren\u2019t useful. Our work shows we can build systems that are both scalable and reliable \u2014 now, not years from now.\u201d<\/p>\n
The research drew inspiration from earlier work at MIT<\/a> and used tools from Google Quantum<\/a> AI. It was supported by the National Science Foundation and conducted with collaborators in Germany.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"For years, the biggest hurdle in quantum computing has been scale. While quantum processors can already tackle complex…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":23367,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[77],"tags":[18,19795,16227,19,17,19796,19797,19798,751,16229,19799,133,19800,18061],"class_list":{"0":"post-23366","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-science","8":"tag-eire","9":"tag-fault-tolerance","10":"tag-google-quantum-ai","11":"tag-ie","12":"tag-ireland","13":"tag-mit-quantum-research","14":"tag-mohamed-shalby","15":"tag-physical-review-a","16":"tag-quantum-computing","17":"tag-quantum-error-correction","18":"tag-scalable-quantum-chips","19":"tag-science","20":"tag-surface-code","21":"tag-uc-riverside"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/23366","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=23366"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/23366\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/23367"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=23366"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=23366"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=23366"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}