A team of scientists from QuEra Computing, Harvard University, and the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) has reported the first experimental demonstration of magic state distillation carried out entirely on logical qubits. The study, titled “Experimental Demonstration of Logical Magic State Distillation,” is now available on the Nature website. Magic states are resource states required for universal, fault-tolerant quantum computing, as they enable the execution of non-Clifford gates. Magic state distillation is a quantum protocol designed to refine imperfect magic states into higher-fidelity versions.
The experiment was conducted on QuEra’s Gemini neutral-atom computer. Researchers first grouped individual atoms into error-protected logical qubits, creating bundles of both distance-3 and distance-5 color-code qubits. They then ran a 5-to-1 distillation protocol, distilling five imperfect magic states into a single, cleaner one. The fidelity of the final magic state exceeded that of any input, demonstrating the practical application of fault-tolerant magic state distillation. This process leveraged the reconfigurable architecture of neutral-atom arrays, including dynamic reconfiguration and all-to-all entanglement, to implement the complex connectivity required by the circuit.
This demonstration indicates a method for generating high-quality magic states within the error-corrected layer, which is intended to enable the execution of quantum programs entirely within the protected logical space. It provides resources for non-Clifford gates, completing the toolkit for logical qubits. The work showcases logical-level error suppression and illustrates the scalability of QuEra’s neutral-atom architecture, with its optical-control system capable of addressing and moving multiple atoms in parallel. The research represents a step toward scalable, fault-tolerant quantum computing.
Read the full announcement here and the study in Nature here.
July 15, 2025
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