Computer Science Challenges in Quantum Computing: Early Fault-Tolerance and Beyond
Summarize this article with:
Quantum Physics arXiv:2601.20247 (quant-ph) [Submitted on 28 Jan 2026] Title:Computer Science Challenges in Quantum Computing: Early Fault-Tolerance and Beyond Authors:Jens Palsberg, Jason Cong, Yufei Ding, Bill Fefferman, Moinuddin Qureshi, Gokul Subramanian Ravi, Kaitlin N. Smith, Hanrui Wang, Xiaodi Wu, Henry Yuen View a PDF of the paper titled Computer Science Challenges in Quantum Computing: Early Fault-Tolerance and Beyond, by Jens Palsberg and 9 other authors View PDF Abstract:Quantum computing is entering a period in which progress will be shaped as much by advances in computer science as by improvements in hardware. The central thesis of this report is that early fault-tolerant quantum computing shifts many of the primary bottlenecks from device physics alone to computer-science-driven system design, integration, and evaluation. While large-scale, fully fault-tolerant quantum computers remain a long-term objective, near- and medium-term systems will support early fault-tolerant computation with small numbers of logical qubits and tight constraints on error rates, connectivity, latency, and classical control. How effectively such systems can be used will depend on advances across algorithms, error correction, software, and architecture. This report identifies key research challenges for computer scientists and organizes them around these four areas, each centered on a fundamental question. Comments: Subjects: Quantum Physics (quant-ph) Cite as: arXiv:2601.20247 [quant-ph] (or arXiv:2601.20247v1 [quant-ph] for this version) https://doi.org/10.48550/arXiv.2601.20247 Focus to learn more arXiv-issued DOI via DataCite (pending registration) Submission history From: Jens Palsberg [view email] [v1] Wed, 28 Jan 2026 04:46:17 UTC (324 KB) Full-text links: Access Paper: View a PDF of the paper titled Computer Science Challenges in Quantum Computing: Early Fault-Tolerance and Beyond, by Jens Palsberg and 9 other authorsView PDFTeX Source view license Current browse context: quant-ph new | recent | 2026-01 References & Citations INSPIRE HEP NASA ADSGoogle Scholar Semantic Scholar export BibTeX citation Loading... BibTeX formatted citation × loading... Data provided by: Bookmark Bibliographic Tools Bibliographic and Citation Tools Bibliographic Explorer Toggle Bibliographic Explorer (What is the Explorer?) Connected Papers Toggle Connected Papers (What is Connected Papers?) Litmaps Toggle Litmaps (What is Litmaps?) scite.ai Toggle scite Smart Citations (What are Smart Citations?) Code, Data, Media Code, Data and Media Associated with this Article alphaXiv Toggle alphaXiv (What is alphaXiv?) Links to Code Toggle CatalyzeX Code Finder for Papers (What is CatalyzeX?) DagsHub Toggle DagsHub (What is DagsHub?) GotitPub Toggle Gotit.pub (What is GotitPub?) Huggingface Toggle Hugging Face (What is Huggingface?) Links to Code Toggle Papers with Code (What is Papers with Code?) ScienceCast Toggle ScienceCast (What is ScienceCast?) Demos Demos Replicate Toggle Replicate (What is Replicate?) Spaces Toggle Hugging Face Spaces (What is Spaces?) Spaces Toggle TXYZ.AI (What is TXYZ.AI?) Related Papers Recommenders and Search Tools Link to Influence Flower Influence Flower (What are Influence Flowers?) Core recommender toggle CORE Recommender (What is CORE?) Author Venue Institution Topic About arXivLabs arXivLabs: experimental projects with community collaborators arXivLabs is a framework that allows collaborators to develop and share new arXiv features directly on our website. Both individuals and organizations that work with arXivLabs have embraced and accepted our values of openness, community, excellence, and user data privacy. arXiv is committed to these values and only works with partners that adhere to them. Have an idea for a project that will add value for arXiv's community? Learn more about arXivLabs. Which authors of this paper are endorsers? | Disable MathJax (What is MathJax?)