IonQ researchers published a technical paper introducing a complete architecture for fault-tolerant quantum computing with trapped ions, called the walking cat architecture.
Today's quantum computers can run meaningful calculations, but errors accumulate as circuits grow larger. Reaching the level of performance required for the most valuable applications in drug discovery, materials science, cryptography, and beyond will require systems that can detect and correct errors in real time. That is what fault-tolerant quantum computing delivers, and what this architecture is designed to enable.
The paper presents a full blueprint: how the system is compiled, how errors are corrected, and how the hardware is organized to run reliably at scale. Rather than optimizing for theoretical peak performance, the design prioritizes simplicity and practical realizability using hardware components that have already been experimentally demonstrated.
The IonQ team concludes that a fault-tolerant quantum computer with hundreds of logical qubits capable of running millions of logical gates can be built in the near term.
Read the full paper for the complete architecture design, error-correction protocols, and simulation results.
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