Concept record · edition 0.1.0
Surface code
What the term means here
A family of topological quantum error-correcting codes commonly studied for two-dimensional local hardware.
Why it matters
It gives a concrete route from noisy physical qubits to logical qubits and gates.
Related claims · 2
- 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-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 →primary paper · verified
Quantum error correction below the surface code threshold
Google Quantum AI and collaborators · 2025
Experimental report of below-threshold surface-code memories; it does not demonstrate a general-purpose fault-tolerant computer.
Source record →