Harvard-led team develops logical qubits to enable scalable quantum computers

    “If anyone had predicted three years ago when the ONISQ program began that Rydberg neutral atoms could function as logical qubits, no one would have believed it,” said Dr. Guido Zuccarello, a DARPA technical adviser who has supported the ONISQ program since its start in 2020. “It’s the DARPA way to bet on the potential of these less-studied qubits along with the more well-studied ions and superconducting circuits. As an exploratory program, ONISQ gave researchers the leeway to explore unique and new applications beyond just the optimization focus. As a result, the Harvard-led team was able to leverage much more of the potential of these Rydberg qubits and turn them into logical qubits, which is a very significant discovery.”