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Title: A Quantum Error Correction Breakthrough?

Link: https://tech.slashdot.org/story/25/11/16/0042...

The dream of quantum computers has been hampered by the challenge of error
correction, writes the Harvard Gazette, since qubits "are inherently
susceptible to slipping out of their quantum states and losing their encoded
information." But in a newly-published paper, a research team "combined
various methods to create complex circuits with dozens of error correction
layers" that "suppresses errors below a critical threshold - the point where
adding qubits further reduces errors rather than increasing them." "For the
first time, we combined all essential elements for a scalable, error-
corrected quantum computation in an integrated architecture," said Mikhail
Lukin, co-director of the Quantum Science and Engineering Initiative, Joshua
and Beth Friedman University Professor, and senior author of the new paper.
"These experiments - by several measures the most advanced that have been
done on any quantum platform to date - create the scientific foundation for
practical large-scale quantum computation..." "There are still a lot of
technical challenges remaining to get to very large-scale computer with
millions of qubits, but this is the first time we have an architecture that
is conceptually scalable," said lead author Dolev Bluvstein, Ph.D. '25, who
did the research during his graduate studies at Harvard and is now an
assistant professor at Caltech. "It's going to take a lot of effort and
technical development, but it's becoming clear that we can build fault-
tolerant quantum computers...." Hartmut Neven, vice president of engineering
at the Google Quantum AI team, said the new paper came amid an "incredibly
exciting" race between qubit platforms. "This work represents a significant
advance toward our shared goal of building a large-scale, useful quantum
computer," he said... With recent advances, Lukin believes the core elements
for building quantum computers are falling into place. "This big dream that
many of us had for several decades, for the first time, is really in direct
sight," he said. "In theory, a system of 300 quantum bits can store more
information than the number of particles in the known universe..." the
article points out. "The new paper represents an important advance in a three-
decade pursuit of quantum error correction." Thanks to long-time Slashdot
reader schwit1 for sharing the article.

Read more of this story at Slashdot.

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