Australian Researchers Develop Novel Error-Correction Scheme Developed for Quantum Computers

(Phys.org) Scientists in Australia have developed a new approach to reducing the errors that plague experimental quantum computers; a step that could remove a critical roadblock preventing them scaling up to full working machines.
Dr. Arne Grimsmo from the University of Sydney, have developed quantum error correction codes that should reduce the number of physical quantum switches, or qubits, required to scale up these machines to a useful size. “The beauty of these codes is they are ‘platform agnostic’ and can be developed to work with a wide range of quantum hardware systems,” Dr. Grimsmo said.
Identifying, removing and reducing errors in quantum computation is one of the central tasks facing physicists working in this field. Dr. Grimsmo said: “One of the most fundamental challenges for realising quantum computers is the fragile nature of quantum superpositions. Fortunately, it is possible to overcome this issue using quantum error correction.”
The researchers hope their foundational work will help build a roadmap towards fault tolerance in quantum computing.