Google Claims Breakthrough in Quantum Computer Error Correction

Google has claimed a breakthrough in correcting for the errors that are inherent in today's quantum computers, marking an early but potentially significant step in overcoming the biggest technical barrier to a revolutionary new form of computing. From a report: The internet company's findings, which have been published in the journal Nature, mark a "milestone on our journey to build a useful quantum computer," said Hartmut Neven, head of Google's quantum efforts. He called error correction "a necessary rite of passage that any quantum computing technology has to go through." Quantum computers struggle to produce useful results because the quantum bits, or qubits, they are based on only hold their quantum states for a tiny fraction of a second. That means information encoded in a quantum system is lost before the machine can complete its calculations. Finding a way to correct for the errors this causes is the hardest technical challenge the industry faces. [...] Google's researchers said they had found a way to spread the information being processed in a quantum computer across a number of qubits in a way that meant the system as a whole could retain enough to complete a calculation, even as individual qubits fell out of their quantum states. The research published in Nature pointed to a reduction of only 4 per cent in the error rate as Google scaled up its technique to run on a larger quantum system. However, the researchers said this was the first time that increasing the size of the computer had not also led to a rise in the error rate.

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