Concept record · edition 0.1.0
Fault tolerance
What the term means here
A computing architecture in which errors are detected and managed so that larger computations can be performed reliably.
Why it matters
It distinguishes proof-of-principle devices from systems capable of long, reliable algorithms.
Related claims · 4
- qc-004
Quantum error correction protects logical quantum information by distributing it across multiple physical qubits and repeatedly extracting error information.
- qc-005
Below-threshold surface-code memory performance has been experimentally reported, but it is not yet a demonstration of general-purpose fault-tolerant quantum computing.
- qc-006
Shor’s algorithm gives polynomial-time quantum algorithms for integer factorization and discrete logarithms on a suitable quantum computer.
- qc-011
The physical resources, decoding, control, and integration needed for useful large-scale fault-tolerant computation remain active engineering and research problems.
Sources used here
primary paper · verified
Surface codes: Towards practical large-scale quantum computation
Austin G. Fowler et al. · 2012
Primary technical overview of surface-code fault tolerance.
Source record →authoritative report · verified
Quantum Information Science and Technology Roadmap
U.S. Department of Energy · 2024
Authoritative systems-level account of hardware, algorithms, error correction, and applications.
Source record →