A fault-tolerant neutral-atom architecture for universal quantum computation

Published

November 10, 2025

Author(s)

Dolev Bluvstein, Alexandra Geim, Sophie Li, Simon Evered, J. Pablo Bonilla Ataides, Gefen Baranes, Andi Gu, Tom Manovitz, Muqing Xu, Marcin Kalinowski, Shayan Majidy, Christian Kokail, Nishad Maskara, Elias C Trapp, Luke Stewart, Simon Hollerith, Hengyun Zhou, Michael Gullans, Susanne Yelin, Markus Greiner, Vladan Vuletic, Madelyn Cain, Mikhail Lukin

Abstract

Quantum error correction (QEC) is believed to be essential for the realization of large-scale quantum computers. However, due to the complexity of operating on the encoded 'logical' qubits, understanding the physical principles for building fault-tolerant quantum devices and combining them into efficient architectures is an outstanding scientific challenge. Here we utilize reconfigurable arrays of up to 448 neutral atoms to implement all key elements of a universal, fault-tolerant quantum processing architecture and experimentally explore their underlying working mechanisms. We first employ surface codes to study how repeated QEC suppresses errors, demonstrating 2.14(13)x below-threshold performance in a four-round characterization circuit byleveraging atom loss detection and machine learning decoding. We then investigate logical entanglement using transversal gates and lattice surgery, and extend to universal logic through transversal teleportation in 3D [[15,1,3]] codes, enabling arbitrary-angle synthesis with logarithmic overhead. Finally, we develop mid-circuit qubit re-use, increasing experimental calibration rates by two orders of magnitude and enabling deep-circuit protocols with dozens of logical qubits and hundreds of logical teleportations on [[7,1,3]] and high-rate [[16,6,4]] codes while maintaining constant internal entropy. Our experiments reveal key principles for efficient architecture design, involving the interplay between quantum logic & entropy removal, judiciously using physical entanglement in logic gates & magic state generation, and leveraging teleportations for universality & physical qubit reset. These results establish foundations for scalable, universal error-corrected processing and its practical implementation with neutral atom systems.

Citation

Nature

Volume

649

Issue

8095

Pub Type

Journals

Download Paper

https://doi.org/10.1038/s41586-025-09848-5

Local Download

Keywords

Quantum computing, quantum error correction, quantum simulation

Citation

Bluvstein, D. , Geim, A. , Li, S. , Evered, S. , Bonilla Ataides, J. , Baranes, G. , Gu, A. , Manovitz, T. , Xu, M. , Kalinowski, M. , Majidy, S. , Kokail, C. , Maskara, N. , Trapp, E. , Stewart, L. , Hollerith, S. , Zhou, H. , Gullans, M. , Yelin, S. , Greiner, M. , Vuletic, V. , Cain, M. and Lukin, M. (2025), A fault-tolerant neutral-atom architecture for universal quantum computation, Nature, [online], https://doi.org/10.1038/s41586-025-09848-5, https://tsapps.nist.gov/publication/get_pdf.cfm?pub_id=960314 (Accessed February 26, 2026)