By David Nield
Publication Date: 2026-10-26 22:00:00
Prototype quantum computers already exist, but if we’re to truly realize their full potential, they need to be significantly scaled up and stabilized – and a team of researchers from IBM just announced an important step toward this goal.
The upgrade concerns the long-distance couplers (L-couplers) that connect qubits together. Qubits sit at the heart of quantum computers, and unlike the conventional bits that underpin classical computing, they’re not restricted to a binary state of 1 or 0.
Scaling up quantum computers by linking multiple chips with L-couplers makes more practical sense than trying to pack ever more qubits together on the same microchip.
But the connectors need to be capable of carrying fragile quantum information over very long distances in quantum terms – 80 centimeters (31.5 inches) long in this case.
Here, the researchers linked two 120-qubit chips together with four L-couplers made of superconducting aluminum, achieving an average transfer accuracy of 99…
