Google Demonstrates Method to Cut Errors in Quantum Computing’s ‘Magic States’

Google demonstrated magic-state cultivation on its Willow quantum processor, reducing state-preparation errors about 40-fold and reporting 99.99% logical fidelity, potentially lowering resource demands for error-corrected computing. The team used reinforcement learning to improve processor calibration and developed a measurement technique to avoid overstating the prepared states’ quality. Researchers transferred prepared states between two error-correcting codes, but larger demonstrations remain necessary, and a storage test produced errors about seven times higher than simulations predicted. Google researchers reduced errors in a crucial quantum computing resource about 40-fold, demonstrating a method that could lower the hardware demands of useful, error-corrected machines. The experiment, published in Science, showed that a technique called magic-state cultivation works on Google’s Willow processor, according to a Google Quantum AI blog post. The company reported producing states known as T-states with a logical…