Oxford Quantum Circuits (OQC) and Riverlane have announced the development of the UK’s first quantum error corrected (QEC) testbed, to be installed in a commercial data centre and connected to high-performance computing (HPC). Funded through the UK’s Quantum Missions Pilot programme, the system is scheduled to go live by March 2026. It will support the UK Government’s Mission 1 objective of achieving a trillion error-free quantum operations (TeraQuop) by 2035. The testbed will feature OQC’s patented Dimon™ dual-rail superconducting qubit architecture, combined with Riverlane’s leakage error detection and decoding stack, to explore fault-tolerant quantum error correction under operational conditions.
The integrated testbed will demonstrate real-world QEC workflows using logical qubits in a secure, cloud-connected environment. Users will have access to the system for experimentation with short-term noise dynamics, long-term error variations, and code optimization. The underlying QPU architecture provides a 20x improvement in qubit stability while maintaining density and compatibility with standard Coaxmon layouts. Hardware efficiencies stem from the use of dual physical qubits per logical unit and a modular cryogenic setup that minimizes downtime through pre-characterized wiring inserts. Riverlane’s Deltaflow QEC stack will provide real-time decoding and performance benchmarking using realistic noise models.
This testbed is one of three Riverlane-supported projects under the Quantum Missions Pilot. In parallel, Riverlane is leading QEC experiments on Rigetti’s 36-qubit superconducting system at the NQCC and is contributing to Oxford Ionics’ Q-Surge initiative to develop a scalable ion-trap quantum computer. These coordinated efforts support the UK’s National Quantum Strategy by demonstrating fault-tolerant QEC on multiple hardware platforms and accelerating the transition from small, error-prone quantum systems to large-scale, commercially viable infrastructure.
Read the full announcements from OQC here and Riverlane here.
April 23, 2025
