Quantinuum's ion-based quantum chip achieves near-million-operation error rates

Quantinuum’s ion-based quantum processor, named Helios, achieved error rates that allow about one million logical operations with only five errors, according to a paper posted on October 19. The machine’s 98 qubits are trapped ions hovering over a chip, and error correction was applied by grouping multiple physical qubits into logical qubits. The key metric, lambda, reached roughly 10, meaning each increase in logical-qubit size reduced errors tenfold, a substantial improvement over previous work that halved errors.

A logical qubit built from 37 physical qubits recorded the near-million-operation performance, though the test involved just one logical qubit. Scaling the system to the “megaquop” regime—potentially 50 to 100 logical qubits—will require further expansion, but the high lambda suggests fewer physical qubits are needed than earlier estimates. Researchers view this as a major milestone toward practical, large-scale quantum computing.