Today, Microsoft and Quantinuum made waves in the world of quantum computing with their major breakthrough in quantum error correction. Using the power of Quantinuum’s revolutionary ion-trap hardware and Microsoft’s cutting-edge qubit-virtualization system, the team conducted over 14,000 experiments with absolutely zero errors. This impressive new system also allowed for the detection and correction of errors in logical qubits without damaging them.
“Noisy” because even the smallest changes in the environment can lead a quantum system to essentially become random (or “decohere”), and “intermediate scale” because the current generation of quantum computers is still limited to just over a thousand qubits at best.”
This breakthrough marks a significant step forward in the field of quantum computing, moving us out of the era of Noisy Intermediate Scale Quantum (NISQ) computers. A qubit, the fundamental unit of computing in quantum systems, holds the potential for immense computing power due to its ability to exist in multiple states simultaneously. However, in the past, even with a large number of qubits, environmental noise made it nearly impossible to run any useful algorithms.
The team achieved this feat by combining various techniques, allowing for thousands of experiments to be conducted with minimal errors. Although the preparation process was meticulous and involved pre-selecting systems that were already in good condition, this breakthrough is still a tremendous advancement from where the industry was just a short time ago.
Microsoft’s General Manager for Azure Quantum, Dennis Tom, and VP of Advanced Quantum Development, Krysta Svore, explain the significance of this achievement in their joint statement:
“Merely increasing the number of physical qubits with a high error rate—without improving that error rate—is futile because doing so would result in a large quantum computer that is not any more powerful than before.”
The team used Quantinuum’s H2 trapped-iron processor to combine 30 physical qubits into four highly reliable logical qubits. This encoding of multiple physical qubits into a single logical qubit helps protect the system from errors by entangling the physical qubits together and making it possible to detect and fix errors.
One of the most challenging aspects of quantum computing has been error correction. Without sophisticated error correction, the system is doomed to fail due to noise and the limited quality of physical qubits. However, through their specialized orchestration-and-diagnostics system, Microsoft and Quantinuum have shown that using high-quality physical qubits in conjunction with virtual qubits can result in powerful, fault-tolerant quantum computers capable of performing more complex computations than ever before.
Previously, physical qubits outperformed logical qubits. However, in this breakthrough, Microsoft and Quantinuum have achieved up to an 800x improvement in error rates when using logical qubits over physical ones.
The researchers also note that to move beyond the NISQ era, there must be a significant gap between logical and physical qubit error rates, as well as the ability to correct individual circuit errors and generate entanglement between at least two logical qubits. If these results continue to hold up, then the team has indeed reached a stable era of resilient quantum computing.
An essential aspect of this achievement is the team’s ability to perform “active syndrome extraction,” meaning they can diagnose and correct errors without destroying the logical qubit in the process. This represents a significant milestone in quantum error correction, as explained by Tom and Svore:
“This achievement marks the first step in being able to correct errors while not destroying the logical qubits and showcases a fundamental milestone in quantum error correction.”
It is now up to the rest of the quantum community to replicate these results and implement similar error correction systems. With the rapid advancements in the field, it is only a matter of time until we see more breakthroughs like this.
According to Quantinuum’s Founder and Chief Product Officer, Ilyas Khan, this monumental achievement is a testament to the continuous progress made by the collaboration between Microsoft and Quantinuum. He states:
“With Microsoft’s state-of-the-art error correction aligned with the world’s most powerful quantum computer and a fully integrated approach, we are so excited for the next evolution in quantum applications and can’t wait to see how our customers and partners will benefit from our solutions, especially as we move towards quantum processors at scale.”
For more technical details on this breakthrough, you can find the full research paper here. This groundbreaking achievement brings us one step closer to the limitless potential of quantum computing.