D-Wave Demonstrates 99.9% Fidelity Entangling Gate for Dual-Rail Qubits Advancing Fault-Tolerant Quantum Computing

Nature Peer-Reviewed Results: D-Wave publishes research demonstrating a ~500-nanosecond two-qubit entangling gate with approximately 99.9% fidelity while maintaining the experimentally observed dual-rail error hierarchy.Error Reduction Factor: Simulations suggest the architecture could achieve an error-reduction factor (Λ) approaching 10 under favorable assumptions, with the potential to reduce physical qubit overhead relative to architectures without native erasure detection.Roadmap Alignment: The results support D-Wave’s dual-platform development path targeting a 100-logical-qubit system capable of more than 1 million operations by 2032.D-Wave Quantum Inc., a commercial provider of both annealing and gate-model quantum systems, announced on August 5, 2026, peer-reviewed research published in Nature demonstrates a fast, high-fidelity two-qubit entangling gate for its superconducting dual-rail qubit architecture. The gate achieves approximately 99.9% fidelity with operation times of about 500 nanoseconds while maintaining the experimentally observed dual-rail error hierarchy and built-in (hardware-level) erasure detection. The results address a central scaling challenge for gate-model quantum computing by showing a path toward more efficient quantum error correction.The paper titled “An Entangling Gate for Dual-Rail Erasure Qubits” (published in Nature) describes a practical way for two special quantum bits to talk to each other.These quantum bits are built from pairs of superconducting microwave cavities that share a single photon of light. Scientists call this a dual-rail (or dual-rail cavity) design. The clever part is that the most common problem, photon loss, does not silently scramble information. Instead, the system can detect a missing photon right away and flag it as an “erasure” error (akin to noticing a letter is missing from an envelope rather than having the letter arrive with the wrong address). This approach is often referred to as an erasure qubit architecture.Above: “The Building Blocks of a Dual-Rail Qubit. D-Wave’s dual-rail qubits are superconducting quantum devices that create, store, and manipulate quantum information to perform computations. Unlike other quantum computing architectures, the dual-rail qubit is designed to detect errors at the hardware level. This built-in error detection makes quantum error correction more efficient by reducing the quantum and classical hardware resources needed to identify and correct errors as systems scale, advancing the path to practical, fault-tolerant gate-model quantum computing.” Inforgraphic and caption courtesy D-Wave.The paper demonstrates a simple three-step process called the Swap-Wait-Swap (SWS) protocol which lets two of these dual-rail qubits perform a controlled-Z (CZ) gate. The controlled-Z (CZ) gate is one of the basic building blocks needed for quantum computing.In experiments, the most common error happened about 0.5% of the time per operation (ie gate). Harder-to-detect residual Pauli errors stayed under 0.1%, and the rarest bit-flip errors occurred only about once in a million operations (near ). This creates a helpful ranking of mistakes known as a favorable error hierarchy: the errors that happen most often are also the easiest ones for the computer to notice and correct.This type of architecture was originally spearheaded by Quantum Circuits and is now part of D-Wave’s systems after acquiring the technology. Because the hardware itself can flag the most frequent errors at the physical level, computer simulations show the system could achieve an error-reduction factor (Λ) approaching 10 under favorable conditions. In practical terms, this means each increase in error-correction distance could reduce the logical error rate by roughly an order of magnitude.As a result, the dual-rail approach may significantly lower the number of physical qubits required to reach fault-tolerant quantum computing compared with architectures lacking native erasure detection. D-Wave reports the new entangling gate has already been integrated into its gate-model quantum computing systems.The research reinforces D-Wave’s gate-model development roadmap, which targets completion of a 100-logical-qubit system capable of successfully performing more than 1 million operations by 2032. The roadmap combines the superconducting dual-rail architecture with integrated cryogenic control technology to enable more efficient error detection and awareness as systems scale. D-Wave is one of the few commercial providers pursuing both annealing quantum computers, available today via its Leap quantum cloud service and on-premises systems, and advancing gate-model processors designed for broader algorithmic reach.

This research demonstrates that our dual-rail architecture combines fast superconducting operations with high-fidelity performance while preserving native hardware-level error detection. We believe that this work confirms our path to commercial fault-tolerant quantum computing is practical and achievable. Dr. Alan Baratz, CEO of D-Wave, stated: “Gate-model quantum computing’s greatest remaining challenge is not simply building more qubits. It is building systems that can correct errors efficiently as they scale. Superconducting quantum computers are known for speed, but achieving the high fidelity needed for scalable, fault-tolerant systems has remained a challenge.

This research demonstrates that our dual-rail architecture combines fast superconducting operations with high-fidelity performance while preserving native hardware-level error detection. We believe that this work confirms our path to commercial fault-tolerant quantum computing is practical and achievable.”Dr. Robert Schoelkopf, chief scientist, noted that the results provide evidence that the core architectural principles of the gate-model development roadmap can deliver the speed, fidelity, and error-correction efficiency required for practical, fault-tolerant quantum computing. Dr. Trevor Lanting, chief development officer, described the work as demonstrating one of the foundational capabilities of the dual-rail architecture and an important step toward fault-tolerant gate-model systems.D-Wave’s dual-rail entangling gate advances efficient quantum error correction on the path to practical fault-tolerant gate-model systems.Find out more here.—Further articles, reports, and the latest quantum computing news may be found at The Qubit Report.Israel’s National AI Directorate and Finance Ministry have launched Project Nexus, a tender to establish a national “Blue and White” quantum computing platform as an Hefei-based Unitary Quantum, China’s only pure-play QCCD trapped-ion company, has raised several hundred million yuan in Series A financing led by Shenzhen Capital Group. The Atomionics has opened a new integrated quantum sensing facility at Alexandra Technopark in Singapore. The company describes the 5,700+ sq ft site as Asia’s first Sign up to receive our newsletter and other reports.We keep your data private and share your data only with third parties that make this service possible. Read our privacy policy for more info.Check your inbox or spam folder to confirm your subscription.