New The Quantum Observer Newsletter was published.
Summary
Quantum computing had a blistering fortnight. Quantinuum launched Helios, a 98 qubit trapped ion system with record two qubit fidelity near 99.921, hybrid real time control, and a new Guppy language. The team also claimed quantum advantage in deep random circuit sampling and a 6×6 Fermi Hubbard simulation, while building on its earlier fully error corrected universal gate set that includes a fault tolerant T gate. Google, IonQ, and IBM added their own milestones, with IBM’s 120 qubit Nighthawk and Loon test chip keeping its roadmap ahead of schedule and squarely pointed at fault tolerance.
Neutral atoms surged into contention. Harvard and QuEra ran a 448 atom surface code below threshold, where a distance 5 code outperformed distance 3, echoing Google’s below threshold results on Willow and signaling true scalability beyond NISQ. Caltech showed a 6,100 atom array with 13 second superpositions and 99.98 percent single qubit control, and China’s Hanyuan 1 delivered a 100 qubit system in rack form. Princeton also set a millisecond coherence record for superconducting qubits, a jump that could cut error rates and error correction overhead dramatically. Three modalities now look viable for fault tolerance: superconducting, trapped ions, and neutral atoms.
For security leaders, the network story is maturing too. Continuous variable QKD ran over 120 km of live metro fiber alongside classical traffic, and Geneva lit a city scale quantum network using ID Quantique devices with entanglement tests and atomic clock sync. Policy and capital are accelerating with DARPA QBI Stage B awards, DOE center renewals, California’s state program, the UK’s showcase funding, EU Quantum Act plans, and Quantinuum’s $800M round. Net result: timelines toward cryptographically relevant quantum machines are firming up. Start or accelerate PQC programs, prioritize data with long confidentiality lifetimes, build crypto agility, and stay skeptical of consumer “quantum” gadgets that promise miracles.
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