Google Shows 1% of a Logical Qubit

The Google Quantum AI team has published a hot new result in Nature:

Realizing the potential of quantum computing requires sufficiently low logical error rates1. Many applications call for error rates as low as 10⁻¹⁵ (refs. 2,3,4,5,6,7,8,9), but state-of-the-art quantum platforms typically have physical error rates near 10⁻³ (refs. 10,11,12,13,14). Quantum error correction15,16,17 promises to bridge this divide by distributing quantum logical information across many physical qubits in such a way that errors can be detected and corrected.

As summarized in AAAS Science, they tried to spread a logical qubit over 11 physical qubits. They were not able to correct errors, but they estimate that they could achieve one logical qubit by using 1000 physical qubits.

The Google author promises something much better "in the relatively near future — date TBD."

Getting one qubit is still a long way from doing anything useful.