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yesterday

Oxford Physicists Set Record-Low 0.000015% Error Rate in Single-Qubit Operation

This near tenfold improvement over the group’s decade-old benchmark signals a major step toward practical quantum computers.

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By cutting single-qubit gate errors to one in 6.7 million, Oxford reduces quantum computer error-correction overhead and paves the way for smaller, more efficient devices.
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Overview

  • Oxford researchers reduced single-qubit gate errors to 0.000015%, achieving one mistake per 6.7 million operations.
  • Using microwave signals to control trapped calcium-ion qubits at room temperature eliminated the need for lasers or magnetic shielding.
  • The work, published in Physical Review Letters, was carried out by Oxford physicists and a visiting researcher from the University of Osaka under the UK QCS Hub.
  • Drastically lower error rates will shrink the qubit count required for error correction, paving the way for smaller and more efficient quantum processors.
  • Two-qubit gate errors remain around one in 2,000 operations, underscoring the challenge of scaling to fully fault-tolerant quantum machines.