UCLA wins $4M to build a 60-qubit fault-tolerant computer

A $4 million award from the National Science Foundation will support a UCLA-led team in designing a 60-qubit quantum computer, aiming to overcome the limitations of current unstable devices. The project, described as “FTL: Accelerating Fault-Tolerant Quantum Logic,” unites researchers across UCLA’s Physical Sciences and Samueli School of Engineering to build a blueprint for error-protected quantum bits capable of simulations beyond classical supercomputers. “Quantum computers will only become useful when they can operate reliably despite the fragility of quantum information,” said UCLA physics professor and principal investigator Eric Hudson.“I learn so much every time I speak with my colleagues on the computer-science side. They have a completely different way of understanding so many of the concepts. This allows us to cover ground more quickly by filling in each other’s gaps.” The team will utilize an integrated-photonics surface ion trap, jointly developed by graduate students Michael Bareian of UCLA and Yiyang Zhi of UCB, as a key component of the experimental system.Building a practical quantum computer requires overcoming a fundamental hurdle: current devices are plagued by errors stemming from environmental interference.

The team’s approach centers on trapped atomic ions, utilizing a quantum charge-coupled device architecture. Individual charged atoms are manipulated within a chip-based system, allowing for controlled interactions between selected ion pairs.This architecture offers both high-quality quantum operations and flexible connectivity, positioning it as a promising pathway toward scalable, error-corrected processors. The project’s scope extends beyond simply building hardware to include codesigning the entire quantum computing stack, from the underlying atomic physics and chip architecture to the quantum error correction protocols, compilation methods, control systems, and targeted applications.By integrating hardware and software development, the team intends to minimize the overhead traditionally associated with fault-tolerant quantum computing. “Working together across the physical sciences and engineering enables us to address the key challenges in designing a quantum computer,” said project co-leader Jens Palsberg, a professor of computer science at UCLA Samueli. The proposed processor will initially focus on digital quantum simulation, a leading application for fault-tolerant machines, potentially revolutionizing fields like materials science, chemistry, and drug discovery.The challenge lies in creating 60 logical qubits, error-protected quantum bits formed by encoding several qubits in a cluster, enabling easier error detection and containment. “This award allows us to bring together the hardware, error correction, software and user communities needed to design a system that can reach the fault-tolerant regime,” Hudson said. Wesley Campbell, a UCLA physicist and project co-leader, also highlighted the value of interdisciplinary collaboration.Quantum computers will only become useful when they can operate reliably despite the fragility of quantum information.This national initiative aims to democratize access to advanced quantum tools, extending capabilities beyond a limited number of specialized labs to researchers nationwide. Unlike traditional bits representing 0 or 1, qubits leverage quantum superposition to exist in multiple states simultaneously, offering immense processing potential. However, maintaining qubit stability is a major hurdle, as external disturbances can introduce errors that compromise calculations.I learn so much every time I speak with my colleagues on the computer-science side. They have a completely different way of understanding so many of the concepts. This allows us to cover ground more quickly by filling in each other’s gaps. Source: https://newsroom.ucla.edu/releases/ucla-led-team-national-science-foundation-quantum-technology-award-2726643 See today’s quantum computing news on Quantum Zeitgeist for the latest breakthroughs in qubits, hardware, algorithms, and industry deals.Ivy Delaney has been working with neural networks and machine learning since the mid-nineties, back when a couple of hidden layers and a long afternoon of training counted as ambitious. She has watched the field go from academic curiosity to the thing quietly running underneath everything, and she brings that long view to quantum computing.

For Quantum Zeitgeist she covers the ground where the two fields meet. That means quantum machine learning and the variational algorithms it leans on, and it also means the less glamorous but more interesting story of classical machine learning already doing real work inside quantum machines, decoding error-correcting codes, calibrating noisy hardware and learning the error models that simulators depend on. She writes about the hardware those algorithms have to run on too, and about the post-quantum cryptography scramble that the same hardware has set off. Her stories typically start with the paper, whether that is peer-reviewed work, conference proceedings or an arXiv preprint, with the source linked so you can hold a claim up against the research it came from. She is unimpressed by benchmarks that will not say what they beat, and by demonstrations that only work in the press release.