Quantum Computing: Microsoft, Quantinuum, and IBM Achieve Breakthrough in Error Correction
Quantum error correction is one of the most critical barriers on the path to practical quantum computing. Recent achievements by Microsoft Quantum, Quantinuum, and IBM Research demonstrate that we are very close to solving this fundamental problem.
Microsoft and Quantinuum: Record Reduction in Logical Errors
A joint study published in the prestigious journal Nature describes experiments on Quantinuum's ion processor. Scientists applied two optimized correction codes: a 12-qubit code inspired by the Knill scheme and a 16-qubit tesseract color code. The first encodes two logical qubits, the second encodes four.
The results are impressive. When preparing a Bell state, the logical error rate dropped from ~0.8% for the physical circuit to 0.001%. This is an 800-fold improvement. Repeated error correction showed a result 51 times lower than the physical baseline, and preparing a 12-qubit cat state yielded a 22-fold improvement.
"Our results show that modern quantum devices are already capable of using fault tolerance and error correction to significantly suppress errors in non-trivial quantum circuits," the authors note.
IBM Research: AI Finds New Correction Codes
In parallel, IBM Research applied large language models (LLMs) to search for new correction codes. Using the OpenEvolve library, the system analyzed bivariate bicycle codes—a family that IBM plans to use in its fault-tolerant systems.
During the initial runs, the AI proposed 465 candidates. Among them is the [[288,50,8]] code with 50 logical qubits (the previous record for this family was 16), as well as the compact [[72,4,8]] code with 72 physical qubits. Some candidates, according to IBM, may be comparable to the benchmark [[144,12,12]] gross code under certain types of noise.
Reminder: IBM has already announced plans to build the IBM Quantum Starling quantum computer with 200 logical qubits by 2029. These results are an important step toward that goal.
Expert opinion. Progress in error correction is not just a technical victory. It is a signal for the entire crypto industry: the threat to SHA-256 from quantum computing is becoming increasingly real. The market needs to more actively adopt post-quantum cryptography before these technologies become commercially available.