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IBM has just made error correction easier for quantum computers

The difficulty of quantum error correction has been a major stumbling block for quantum computers, but IBM researchers have developed a way to make it far more efficient

By Leah Crane

18 August 2023

IBM Quantum scientist Dr. Maika Takita in the Thomas J Watson Research Center IBM Quantum Lab.

One problem with quantum computers is that they have a high error rate

Connie Zhou/IBM

IBM has managed to dramatically reduce the number of quantum bits, or qubits, required to prevent errors in a quantum computer. Its latest approach to quantum error correction should bring down the number of qubits needed to build a useful quantum machine.

The biggest problem with today’s quantum computers is that they are noisy, meaning they have error rates around 1 in 1000, whereas classical error rates tend to be around 1 in 1 billion billion.…

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