Five errors in a million: a quantum computer smashes its own accuracy record

Quantum computers are powerful but error-prone — tiny disturbances make their building blocks, called qubits, misfire. Quantinuum says its Helios machine, already in commercial use, has now corrected those errors so well that only five operations in a million go wrong — an accuracy of 99.9995%. That error rate is ten times lower than the record the same company set just last month, achieved on the same hardware with a well-known error-correcting method called a colour code. Keeping mistakes this rare is the key step toward quantum computers that can run long, reliable calculations, and the company says the result puts its planned fault-tolerant machine, Apollo, on track for 2029.

SDG 9 · Industry, innovation and infrastructure — Mechanism: tech innovation