Quantum computers, which have made an evolutionary leap, can now perform error-resistant calculations

There is no doubt that quantum computers are at the center of technological development, and yesterday There was a turning point Very important in its development: it was actually possible to demonstrate the first method of Fault tolerance using three qubits Logically encoded on the Quantinuum H1 quantum computer.

In other words, it’s about making reality real Threshold theoryWhich means creating a quantum computer that can work for a long time and perform complex operations Without the results becoming unusable Because of the noise.

Threshold theory states that a quantum computer with a physical error rate below a certain threshold can, by applying quantum error correction schemes, suppress the logical error rate to arbitrarily low levels.

This shows that quantum computers can be made fault-tolerant, similar to the von Neumann threshold theory of classical computing. (Wikipedia)

Although most of us think of a computer as a machine that “never makes any mistakes,” it’s actually more about it Manages mistakes – Very often – while still ensuring the right result. It’s understandable Error tolerancecommon in engineering.

The “problem” with quantum computers (one of the problems, in fact) is precisely that error management has until now been a very complex challenge – which is quite understandable given that we’re talking about computation Probability. Quantum computers Error tolerant It could become the key to running scientific simulations, improving cybersecurity, or even supporting the next evolutionary step in artificial intelligence.

Already today, in fact, quantum computing has proven its amazing potential, but with the demonstration of Quantinuum H1 The next turning point It could be much closer; And also because it’s certainly not the only group (or private company) working on the topic of fault tolerance.

“By performing single-bit addition using the smallest known fault-tolerant circuit, the A The error rate is about an order of magnitude lowerequals ~1.1×10-3 compared to ~9.5×10-3 for the uncoded circuit,” explained the official notes.

“Our H Series ion trap architecture provides the lowest physical error rates,” said Ilyas Khan, Chief Product Officer and Founder of Quantinuum.

“This achievement demonstrates that real hardware is now able to make all the essential elements of fault-tolerant quantum computing – state setting, Clifford gates, non-Clifford gates and syllogisms – work together,” adds Ben Krieger, senior research scientist at Quantinuum. The main researcher for this study.