Scientists have achieved 96% preservation of logical qubits on the IBM Heron processor — a breakthrough in quantum error correction.
Quantum computing is approaching practical implementation: a group of researchers, in collaboration with IBM, has demonstrated a significant increase in the preservation of logical qubits to 96%. This result was achieved on the 156-qubit superconducting processor IBM Quantum Heron r2 and represents a major step toward fault-tolerant quantum systems.
The Main Problem — "Idle Noise"
The primary obstacle to stable quantum machines is the so-called "idle noise." It occurs when the system performs intermediate measurements of qubits in the middle of a computational cycle. In modern quantum devices, regular internal checks are required for error correction, but during these pauses, the remaining processor components lose stability, generating new errors.
New Error Correction Architecture
To solve this problem, physicists completely redesigned the architecture of error correction circuits, radically reducing the time computation is halted. Thanks to algorithm optimization, the survival rate of logical qubits per correction cycle was raised from less than 90% to 96%. This is critically important because the correction process is repeated multiple times at each stage of computation, and forced idle time of components becomes a serious obstacle to reliable operation.
Practical Significance and Prospects
Although the result was obtained in laboratory conditions on a single processor, this line of research is fundamentally important for the entire industry. Scalability and fault tolerance remain the main barriers to quantum computing. IBM has already planned to achieve the first confirmed cases of quantum advantage by the end of 2026, and such breakthroughs in error correction bring this goal closer.
My expert commentary: Achieving 96% preservation of logical qubits is not just an improvement of a few percent. It is a demonstration that the fundamental problems of quantum error correction are solvable. If this approach scales, we could see the first commercially significant quantum computing within the next 3-5 years, which will radically change the landscape of cryptography and high-performance computing.