Tag
#quantum hardware
7 articles
- State of Quantum Computing: Mid-2026 Edition
Five hardware platforms. Four NIST cryptographic standards. Two contested quantum advantage claims. One below-threshold error correction milestone. Seven years after the NISQ era began, quantum computing is at an inflection point. Here is a precise, unsentimental account of where every major platform stands, what has been proved, what remains unproven, and what the next decade realistically looks like.
- The Topological Bet: How Microsoft Is Building Qubits That Are Physically Immune to Errors
Every other qubit platform corrects errors in software, paying a price of hundreds of physical qubits per logical qubit. Microsoft's topological qubit encodes information in the non-local parity of Majorana zero modes — a quantum property that local noise physically cannot disturb. Here is the physics, the hardware, the controversy, and where the approach stands after the February 2025 Nature paper.
- Fixing Broken Qubits: How the Surface Code Makes Fault-Tolerant Quantum Computing Possible
Every qubit in a quantum processor makes mistakes — not sometimes, but continuously. Quantum error correction doesn't prevent errors; it encodes logical qubits redundantly across many physical ones so that errors can be detected and corrected without ever directly measuring the quantum state. Here is how the surface code achieves this, what the overhead actually costs, and why Google's 2023 demonstration changed the field.
- Light as a Qubit: The Physics and Promise of Photonic Quantum Computing
Photons are the only qubits that can travel through optical fibre, operate at room temperature without any cryogenics, and be manufactured on silicon chips in commercial CMOS fabs. The catch: photons don't interact with each other. Here is how the field is engineering around that fundamental constraint.
- Atoms in a Grid: How Neutral Atom Quantum Computers Are Quietly Redefining Scale
Neutral atom quantum computers trap individual atoms with laser light, arrange them in arbitrary 2D patterns, and entangle them through a quantum mechanical phenomenon called the Rydberg blockade. QuEra recently demonstrated 48 logical qubits — the most ever achieved on any hardware platform. Here is exactly how the platform works.
- Trapped Ions: The Most Precise Qubits on Earth — and Why Scaling Them Is So Hard
Trapped ion quantum computers hold coherence for minutes where superconducting chips manage microseconds, and entangle any two qubits with 99.9% fidelity. Here is the physics of how they work — and the engineering challenge that stands between them and scale.
- Inside the Dilution Refrigerator: The Extreme Engineering of Superconducting Qubits
Every superconducting quantum processor requires a machine the size of a chandelier, operating 150 times colder than deep space, threaded with hundreds of precision microwave cables. Here is what is actually happening inside.
