Scientists perform first teleportation between quantum computers

Scientists at the University of Oxford have taken a significant step towards the large-scale use of quantum computing by creating the first distributed quantum computer. Using a photonic network interface, they have combined two separate quantum processors into a single, fully interconnected system.

This is stated on the official website of the University of Oxford.

Overcoming the scaling problem

One of the biggest challenges in quantum computing is scalability. To achieve industry-transforming capabilities, a quantum computer must process millions of qubits. However, integrating that many qubits into a single device would require an impractically large machine.

A new approach offers a solution by linking smaller quantum devices into a unified network, allowing computations to be distributed among them. In theory, this method could support an unlimited number of processors, paving the way for more practical and powerful quantum systems.

Scientists have previously succeeded in teleporting quantum states, but this study marks the first demonstration of teleporting logical elements — the fundamental building blocks of quantum algorithms — across a network connection.

According to the researchers, this breakthrough could pave the way for a future "quantum Internet", where remote processors form an ultra-secure network for communication, computation, and sensing.

This approach mirrors the architecture of classical supercomputers, which rely on multiple smaller computing nodes working in tandem. By distributing computations across a network, it sidesteps the technical challenges of scaling qubits within a single device while preserving their delicate quantum properties — essential for stable and accurate processing.

To evaluate this method, researchers implemented the Grover algorithm, a quantum search technique capable of rapidly identifying a target item within an unstructured database. Its successful execution confirmed that a distributed approach can significantly extend the capabilities of quantum computing.

In the future, this breakthrough could pave the way for powerful quantum systems capable of solving complex problems in minutes — challenges that would take even today’s most advanced quantum supercomputers years to complete.

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