Srinivas Prasad Sugasani, Vice President of Quantum at Microsoft dropped an exciting announcement. He announced the debut of important breakthroughs in quantum computing technology for commercial customers by the end of this year. It was a breakthrough decades in the making, thanks to years of advances in research. It’s a goal that scientists and engineers have been working toward since before the 1980s. The industry is exploring three different levels of quantum computing maturity. With each tier, you’ll get a glimpse into an exciting new stage of quantum machines’ development and ability.
The first tier includes today’s noisy, intermediate-scale quantum (NISQ) computers. These computers struggle due to the noise and errors that come naturally with their quantum states. These machines are usually based on the use of just 1,000 quantum bits (qubits). The second tier includes smaller machines built to rapidly deploy protocols for identifying and rectifying errors within qubits themselves. At the same time, the third layer focuses on big machines that can run millions of quantum operations all with a high fidelity.
Progress in Quantum Computing
QuEra and researchers from Harvard, MIT, and the University of Maryland are making very exciting progress. Among other things, they displayed that quantum operations with logical qubits perform far superior to operations conducted with bare physical qubits. This development is a promising step towards the ability to perform more reliable and efficient quantum computations in the future.
Srinivas Prasad Sugasani is particularly looking forward to the changes coming in 2026. As he says, the years of hard and deep work are starting to pay dividends in the now. He stated, “We feel very excited about the year 2026, because lots of work that happened over the last so many years is coming to fruition now.” Today, the quantum computing community is abuzz with optimism. They are thrilled, too, at the amazing things that lie just down the road.
Jerry Chow, the Director of Quantum Systems at IBM Quantum, recognized the end goal—building a big, error-corrected machine. He made it clear that as important as the field is, error correction does not need to precede other advances in the sector. He noted, “I think that kind of level framing…is a very physics-device-oriented view of the world, and we should be looking at it more from a computational view of the world.”
Neutral Atoms and Their Advantages
Researchers are finding more and more that neutral atoms are a very promising way to build these level-two quantum computers. This strategy has produced high-quality and effective deliverables as clearly seen in two machines now in development. Computations on atomic systems are typically one-hundredth to one-thousandth as fast as those performed on superconducting systems. Chow pointed out that we can do more than just minimize this slowdown—we can speed things up using alternative approaches.
Yuval Boger from QuEra reinforced the capabilities of neutral atoms, stating, “Because of the unique capabilities of neutral atoms, we have shown that we can create a 50x or 100x speedup over what previously was thought.” This statement implies that neutral atoms may provide major benefits in computational speed and efficiency in the coming quantum applications.
Boger contended that if you looked at both clock speed and the time required to get useful results, neutral atoms might be the best contenders. They can outdo superconducting qubits. “We think that when you compare what some people call time to solution…that neutral atoms today are comparable to superconducting qubits,” he explained.
Looking Ahead: A New Era for Quantum Computing
QuEra has made significant strides in delivering a quantum machine equipped for error correction to Japan’s National Institute of Advanced Industrial Science and Technology (AIST). The organization intends to expand availability to international customers by 2026. Sugasani concluded by reiterating that the machine’s first priority should be setting a scientific advantage. At this stage of the game, urging commercial profits to come first is misplaced.
Today’s quantum computing landscape is changing before our eyes, signaling the increasing momentum building that points toward quantum becoming real. Every stage of development brings researchers closer to building practical and dependable quantum systems. As such, hype around these technologies continues to abound.
With partners like QuEra, Microsoft is at the forefront of quantum tech revolution. Their innovations are opening up new, transformational applications in nearly every field. That much more sophisticated and capable quantum computing landscape is hardly an ephemeral long-term promise. It’s not just history—the work on it is ongoing.