Oxford Scientists Slash Quantum Error to Record Low

A growing interest in quantum technology has its market size surpassing $1 billion and is projected to be valued at more than $170 billion by 2040. According to McKinsey, quantum technology could create trillions of dollars worth of value within the next decade. 

In the quantum technology ecosystem, quantum computing in particular holds vast potential. It involves the use of quantum mechanics, which simply deals with the behavior of matter and energy at the atomic and subatomic levels, to solve complex problems. 

Quantum computing is expected to have a profound impact in various fields, including technology, research, science, finance, and the economy.

Unlike classical computers, such as our laptops, which store and process information in bits with each one being a zero or a one, the basic unit in quantum computing is a qubit. A quantum chip is composed of many quantum bits, or qubits, which are typically subatomic particles such as electrons or photons, manipulated and controlled by specially designed electric and magnetic fields.

The qubits can be in a state of zero, one, or a combination of both. The combination, called a “superposition state,” is a distinct property that allows quantum computers to store and process extremely large data sets much faster than even the most powerful classical computers.

Now, there are many different ways to make these qubits, such as using semiconductors, photonics, superconducting devices, and other approaches.

The quality of qubits is of great importance here. However, they are sensitive to errors or noise, which are unwanted disturbances that can come from many sources. These sources could include changes in temperature, imperfections in the manufacturing process, and interactions with the qubit’s environment, among others.

These errors reduce a qubit’s reliability, which is known as fidelity. A qubit with high fidelity is essential for a quantum chip to perform complex tasks.

Making Quantum Reliability a Reality

Over the last few decades, scientists have been working on logical qubits, which refer to qubits encoded using a collection of physical qubits to protect against errors. While physical qubits represent the actual quantum hardware, a logical qubit is an abstraction that imitates a fault-tolerant qubit.

Major quantum chip developers have shifted their focus to logical qubits and are making significant progress on quantum error corrections.

For instance, in Dec. 2024, Google (GOOG )  unveiled its quantum chip called Willow. This new chip, based on superconducting qubits, has been heralded as a major breakthrough in the field of quantum computing, although it currently has no real-world applications.

Typically, the more qubits are used, the more errors occur, and the system becomes classical. However, Google demonstrated¹ that the more qubits they used in Willow, the fewer errors they reduced, and the more quantum the system became. 

The tech giant was able to reduce errors “exponentially” by scaling up the number of qubits, said Hartmut Neven, founder of Google Quantum AI. This “cracks a key challenge in quantum error correction that the field has pursued for almost 30 years,” he added.

To measure Willow’s performance, Google used the random circuit sampling (RCS) standard. Its quantum chip performed a computation in less than five minutes that would take a supercomputer 10 septillion years.

In Feb. this year, Microsoft (MSFT ) also unveiled the world’s first quantum processor powered by topological qubits. Majorana 1 is designed to scale to a million qubits on a single chip. With this achievement, the tech behemoth said that it is on track to build a prototype of a scalable, fault-tolerant quantum computer in just a few years.

The basis of Majorana 1 is the breakthrough made by the team, specifically the topoconductor, a class of materials that enabled the creation of topological superconductivity. This is the result of fabricating a device that combines aluminum (a superconductor) and indium arsenide (a semiconductor).

When this device is cooled to nearly zero and then tuned with magnetic fields, it forms topological superconducting nanowires, with the ends of the wires containing Majorana Zero Modes (MZMs) that serve as the building blocks of their qubits.

To unlock quantum’s promise, the team has already placed eight topological qubits on a chip designed to house one million.

Even Amazon has announced its quantum chip called ‘Ocelot’ that uses a scalable architecture to reduce error correction by as much as 90%. 

The chip consists of two integrated silicon microchips, each with an area of roughly one square centimeter, bonded one on top of the other in an electrically connected chip stack. Each microchip’s surface has thin layers of superconducting materials, forming the quantum circuit elements.

There are a total of 14 main elements making up the Ocelot chip, including five data qubits (cat qubits), another five to stabilize the data qubits, and four more qubits to detect errors on the data qubits.

The cat qubits store the quantum states, for which they rely on oscillators, which are made from a thin film of Tantalum and steadily produce a repetitive electrical signal. 

“With the recent advancements in quantum research, it is no longer a matter of if, but when practical, fault-tolerant quantum computers will be available for real-world applications. Ocelot is an important step on that journey.”

– Oskar Painter, AWS director of Quantum Hardware.

Ocelot architecture is believed to accelerate their “timeline to a practical quantum computer by up to five years.”

The Race Towards Fault-Tolerant Quantum Systems

Enhancing the accuracy of quantum computations is the focus of companies and researchers alike worldwide, and significant strides have been made here.

Just a couple of years ago, MIT researchers showcased a new superconducting qubit framework capable of performing operations between qubits with great accuracy. The new type of superconducting qubit is fluxonium, which can have a lifespan, or coherence times, much longer than commonly used ones. 

Coherence time is a measure of how long a qubit can perform operations before all the information in the qubit is lost.

“The longer a qubit lives, the higher fidelity the operations it tends to promote.”

– Lead author, Leon Ding

The architecture, meanwhile, involved a special coupling element between two fluxonium qubits, enabling them to perform logical operations, known as gates, with high accuracy. It suppresses background noise that can bring errors into quantum operations.

The accuracy of two-qubit gates surpassed 99.9% while having 99.99% in single-qubit gates. The architecture, meanwhile, was implemented on a chip using an extensible fabrication process.

“Building a large-scale quantum computer starts with robust qubits and gates,” and the study showed a highly promising two-qubit system, stated Ding. The fluxonium qubits achieved coherence times of more than a millisecond. Their next step has been to increase the number of qubits.

A couple of months ago, MIT researchers also unveiled a superconducting quantum circuit that achieved a strong nonlinear coupling between photons (microwave light) and artificial atoms (qubits). It could enable readout and processing of quantum information in a few nanoseconds.

For this, researchers used a unique superconducting circuit framework to show nonlinear light-matter coupling, which is significantly stronger than previously observed and can enable a quantum processor to operate up to 10 times faster.

According to lead author Yufeng “Bright” Ye:

“This would really eliminate one of the bottlenecks in quantum computing. Usually, you have to measure the results of your computations in between rounds of error correction. This could accelerate how quickly we can reach the fault-tolerant quantum computing stage and be able to get real-world applications and value out of our quantum computers.”

Notably, Ye invented a new type of quantum coupler to facilitate interactions between qubits. The quarton coupler is a special kind of superconducting circuit that can generate extremely strong nonlinear coupling, and by feeding more current into it, the coupler creates an even stronger nonlinear interaction. Ye explained:

“Most of the useful interactions in quantum computing come from nonlinear coupling of light and matter. If you can get a more versatile range of different types of coupling, and increase the coupling strength, then you can essentially increase the processing speed of the quantum computer.” 

With this work, the researchers hope others will be able to build a fault-tolerant quantum computer for practical, large-scale quantum computation.

Innovations by the SQMS Nanofabrication Taskforce, meanwhile, have achieved² coherence times of up to 0.6 milliseconds, which was the result of optimized qubit design and improved readout resonators, both of which enhanced the stability and coherence. 

This collaboration between the National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST), Fermilab’s Superconducting Quantum Materials and Systems (SQMS) Center, and several other government, university, and industrial partners aims to bring quantum research closer to reality. 

Amidst all these initiatives to build scalable, fault-tolerant quantum computers, physicists at the University of Oxford have set a new world record for qubit operation accuracy.

Setting a New Global Benchmark at Quantum Accuracy

The new study, published in Physical Review Letters³, shows that Oxford physicists have achieved an error rate of just 0.000015% for a single quantum logic operation. 

This means one error in 6.7 million operations, which is a new record for qubit operation accuracy and a big leap towards having more robust and useful quantum computers to address highly complex problems with fewer physical qubits and reduced infrastructure requirements.

“As far as we are aware, this is the most accurate qubit operation ever recorded anywhere in the world. It is an important step toward building practical quantum computers that can tackle real-world problems.” 

– The study’s co-author, Professor David Lucas, Department of Physics, University of Oxford

What’s interesting is that this breakthrough breaks the previous record that was set by the same team. The new record is about seven times more accurate than their prior one.

Just over a decade ago, the team implemented⁴ all single-qubit operations with fidelities far above the minimum threshold needed for fault-tolerant quantum computing, using a trapped-ion qubit that was stored in hyperfine “atomic clock” states. At the time, their single-qubit error rate was 1 in 1 million. 

This success led to the launch of the spinout company called Oxford Ionics in 2019, which has become a leader in high-performance trapped-ion qubit platforms. In May 2025, it outlined three short-term development phases: ‘Foundation’, ‘Enterprise-grade’, and ‘Value at scale’, to achieve broad commercial value within the next 3 years and deliver 1 million qubit devices. Just last week, Oxford Ionics entered into an agreement with IonQ (IONQ ) to acquire it for $1.075 billion.

Now, the same team has achieved a new milestone in reducing the likelihood of quantum logic gates making errors.

Performing useful calculations on a quantum computer requires millions of operations to be run across many qubits. But this magnitude means a high error rate can render the final result meaningless and useless.

Correcting the error can fix the mistake, but that calls for even more qubits. So, by reducing the error, the new study reduces the number of qubits needed, which then brings down the size and cost of the quantum computer.

“By drastically reducing the chance of error, this work significantly reduces the infrastructure required for error correction, opening the way for future quantum computers to be smaller, faster, and more efficient. Precise control of qubits will also be useful for other quantum technologies such as clocks and quantum sensors,” said the study’s co-lead author, Molly Smith, who is a graduate student at Oxford.

In order to achieve the unprecedented level of accuracy, the physicists used a trapped calcium ion as the quantum bit or qubit.

Calcium ions are commonly used to store quantum information because of their long coherence times and high fidelity in quantum operations. They are also very robust and easy to manipulate with lasers.

The Oxford team, however, didn’t use the conventional laser approach; rather, they used electronic (microwave) signals to control the quantum state of the calcium ions.

With this technique, they were able to have greater stability than what laser control could offer. But that’s not all. Compared to lasers, electronic control is also cheaper and more robust. It is also easier to integrate into ion-trapping chips. 

Moreover, the experiment was conducted without magnetic shielding and at room temperature, which simplifies the technical requirements for a working quantum computer.

So, the team was able to reduce the error by nearly an order of magnitude this time through better control of microwave amplitude and detuning with automated calibration procedures. Additionally, reduced excitation of spectator transitions through larger Zeeman splittings, as well as the use of pulse shaping, contributed to this. 

The record-breaking precision is a massive achievement; however, it is just a part of a larger challenge. As the team noted, quantum computing requires both single- and two-qubit gates to work together, and two-qubit gates still suffer from high error rates.

Currently, the best error rate is around 1 in 2000, so in order to build a fully fault-tolerant quantum machine, the team has to bring this number down.

High-fidelity single-qubit operations still have many uses both in quantum information and beyond, including protecting ‘idle’ qubits via dynamical decoupling, in quantum sensing applications, and composite pulse sequences to address individual qubits and to compensate for errors.

Investing in Quantum Computing

International Business Machines Corporation (IBM ), which is known for its hybrid cloud and AI platforms and consulting and infrastructure services, has been exploring quantum technology since the 1970s. In 2016, it launched the IBM Quantum Experience, which put the first quantum processor on the cloud, in turn, making it accessible to all.

IBM (IBM ) 

Over the years, IBM continued its research in the field, and last week, it announced plans to have a practical quantum computer ready by 2029.

Dubbed “Starling,” the fault-tolerant quantum computer with 200 logical qubits will be built at a data center that’s under construction in Poughkeepsie, New York.

According to reports, the team has developed a new algorithm that significantly reduces the number of qubits required for error correction. Jay Gambetta, in charge of IBM’s quantum initiative, said the following in an interview:

“We’ve answered those science questions. You don’t need a miracle now. Now you need a grand challenge in engineering. There’s no reinvention of tools or anything like that.”

Now, if we look at the $257.64 billion market cap, IBM’s market performance, its shares are currently trading at $278, up 26.11% YTD. IBM shares actually hit an all-time high (ATH) of $281.75 just last week.

With that, its EPS (TTM) is 5.85 and the P/E (TTM) is 47.42, while the dividend yield offered is 2.42%.

When it comes to IBM’s financials, it reported a revenue of $14.5 billion for the first quarter of 2025. GAAP Gross profit margin during this period was 55.2% while non-GAAP operating profit margin was 56.6%. Its GAAP pre-tax income margin, meanwhile, was 8%, and the Non-GAAP operating margin was 12%.

“We exceeded expectations for revenue, profitability and free cash flow in the quarter, led by strength across our Software portfolio. There continues to be strong demand for generative AI and our book of business stands at more than $6 billion inception-to-date, up more than $1 billion in the quarter.” 

– CEO Arvind Krishna

In the first quarter of this year, net cash generated from operating activities came in at $4.4 billion while free cash flow was $2 billion. IBM ended the quarter with $17.6 billion of cash, restricted cash, and marketable securities.

Strong liquidity position and solid free cash flow allowed the company to return $1.5 billion to shareholders in dividends. It also invested $7.1 billion in acquisitions, which included the purchase of HashiCorp. According to the Krishna:

“We remain bullish on the long-term growth opportunities for technology and the global economy.” 

Latest International Business Machines Corporation (IBM) Stock News and Developments

Conclusion: Next Steps Toward Quantum Reality

From scientists to companies and governments, everyone is actively and deeply involved in making quantum computers a reality. The latest breakthroughs by the Oxford team and tech giants are drastically improving qubit fidelity and making error correction more efficient, which means the next quantum leap may no longer be decades away, making practical quantum machines inevitable!

Click here for a list of top quantum computing companies.

Studies Referenced:

^{1. Google Quantum AI and Collaborators. Quantum Error Correction Below the Surface Code Threshold. Nature 2025, 638 (8016), 920–926. https://doi.org/10.1038/s41586-024-08449-y
2. Bal, M.; Crisa, F.; Murthy, A. A.; et al. SQMS Nanofabrication Taskforce: Towards Fabrication of High Coherence Superconducting Qubits. Conference, 20 September 2024. https://doi.org/10.2172/2462792
3. Smith, M. C.; Leu, A. D.; Miyanishi, K.; et al. Single-Qubit Gates with Errors at the 10⁻⁷ Level. Phys. Rev. Lett. 2025, 134, 230601. https://doi.org/10.1103/42w2-6ccy
4. Harty, T. P.; Allcock, D. T. C.; Ballance, C. J.; et al. High-Fidelity Preparation, Gates, Memory, and Readout of a Trapped-Ion Quantum Bit. Phys. Rev. Lett. 2014, 113, 220501. https://doi.org/10.1103/PhysRevLett.113.220501}