Abstract

Quantum error correction (QEC) [1,2] is essential for the realization of large-scale quantum computers [3,4]. However, due to the complexity of operating on the encoded ‘logical’ qubits [5,6], understanding the physical principles for building fault-tolerant quantum devices and combining them into efficient architectures is an outstanding scientific challenge. Here we utilize reconfigurable arrays of up to 448 neutral atoms to implement the key elements of a universal, fault-tolerant quantum processing architecture and experimentally explore their underlying working mechanisms. We first employ surface codes to study how repeated QEC suppresses errors [6,7], demonstrating 2.14(13)x below-threshold performance in a four-round characterization circuit by leveraging atom loss detection and machine learning decoding [8,9]. We then investigate logical entanglement using transversal gates and lattice surgery [10–12], and extend it to universal logic through transversal teleportation with 3D [[15,1,3]] codes [13,14], enabling arbitrary-angle synthesis with polylogarithmic overhead [5,15]. Finally, we develop mid-circuit qubit re-use [16], increasing experimental cycle rates by two orders of magnitude and enabling deep-circuit protocols with dozens of logical qubits and hundreds of logical teleportations [17–20] with [[7,1,3]] and high-rate [[16,6,4]] codes while maintaining constant internal entropy. Our experiments reveal key principles for efficient architecture design, involving the interplay between quantum logic & entropy removal, judiciously using physical entanglement in logic gates & magic state generation, and leveraging teleportations for universality & physical qubit reset. These results establish foundations for scalable, universal error-corrected processing and its practical implementation with neutral atom systems.

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Author information

Author notes

These authors contributed equally: Dolev Bluvstein, Alexandra A. Geim

Authors and Affiliations

Department of Physics, Harvard University, Cambridge, MA, USA

Dolev Bluvstein, Alexandra A. Geim, Sophie H. Li, Simon J. Evered, J. Pablo Bonilla Ataides, Gefen Baranes, Andi Gu, Tom Manovitz, Muqing Xu, Marcin Kalinowski, Shayan Majidy, Christian Kokail, Nishad Maskara, Elias C. Trapp, Luke M. Stewart, Simon Hollerith, Hengyun Zhou, Susanne F. Yelin, Markus Greiner, Madelyn Cain & Mikhail D. Lukin 1.

California Institute of Technology, Pasadena, CA, USA

Dolev Bluvstein 1.

Department of Physics and Research Laboratory of Electronics, Massachusetts Institute of Technology, Cambridge, MA, USA

Gefen Baranes & Vladan Vuletić 1.

ITAMP, Harvard-Smithsonian Center for Astrophysics, Cambridge, MA, USA

Christian Kokail 1.

QuEra Computing Inc., Boston, MA, USA

Hengyun Zhou 1.

Joint Center for Quantum Information and Computer Science, NIST/University of Maryland, College Park, Maryland, USA

Michael J. Gullans

Authors

1. Dolev Bluvstein
2. Alexandra A. Geim
3. Sophie H. Li
4. Simon J. Evered
5. J. Pablo Bonilla Ataides
6. Gefen Baranes
7. Andi Gu
8. Tom Manovitz
9. Muqing Xu
10. Marcin Kalinowski
11. Shayan Majidy
12. Christian Kokail
13. Nishad Maskara
14. Elias C. Trapp
15. Luke M. Stewart
16. Simon Hollerith
17. Hengyun Zhou
18. Michael J. Gullans
19. Susanne F. Yelin
20. Markus Greiner
21. Vladan Vuletić
22. Madelyn Cain
23. Mikhail D. Lukin

Corresponding author

Correspondence to Mikhail D. Lukin.

Supplementary information

Supplementary Information

This file contains 5 sections. 1. Error model: Error model (Supplementary Table I) and pseudocode used for simulations of repeated stabilizer measurement on the surface code (Fig. 2). 2. Repeated QEC stim circuit: Stim circuit for four rounds of stabilizer measurement on a d=5 surface code, preparing and measuring in the X basis. 3. Repeated QEC experimental command strings: Supplementary Note containing experimental commands used to program the circuit for four rounds of stabilizer measurement on the surface code (Fig. 2), including the Moving, Raman, Raman AOD, and Rydberg AWGs. 4. Tesseract code experimental command strings: Supplementary Note containing experimental commands used to program the circuit for a 2D cluster state of [[16,6,4]] codes (Fig. 6), including the Moving, Raman, Raman AOD, and Rydberg AWGs. 5. Summary of decoders: Supplementary Table II summarizing the decoders and methods of error correction and error detection used throughout the manuscript.

Transparent Peer Review file

Supplementary Video 1

Animation illustrating the atom and trap positions used for four rounds of repeated stabilizer measurement on a d=5 surface (Fig. 2). The static green circles indicate SLM tweezers, red circles are the movable AOD tweezers and dark circles are individual atoms. The X(Y) tones are indicated by vertical(horizontal) dashed lines. The power of each tweezer/tone is indicated by the opacity of its marker/line. One unit on the x/y axes corresponds to approximately 0.66 um. A 5x5 grid of data qubits is first transferred to the entangling zone. An ancilla qubit block is brought from the storage zone, realize gates with the data qubits for stabilizer measurements, and are then returned to storage. This is repeated for three more blocks of ancilla qubits. Finally, the data qubits are transferred back to storage and all qubits measured via spin-to-position conversion (using two moves).

Supplementary Video 2

Supplementary Videos 2 and 3 are movies of single atoms (real pictures captured with a microscope objective and CMOS camera), showing the quantum circuit implemented in Figs. 6 to realize teleportation-based algorithms in the space and time direction. Parallel entangling gates are indicated by red ovals. Two groups of qubits, A and B, are in the readout and storage zone, respectively, with additional qubits forming the reservoir. Qubits in group A are moved into the entangling zone and encoded using a hypercube encoding circuit. Transversal gates between codes form a 1D cluster state. Next, group B (already entangled) is entangled with group A to create a 2D cluster state, across the space and time directions. Group A is moved to storage, to be entangled with the next cycle, and group B is moved to the readout zone and measured via spin-to-position conversion. For illustrative purposes, each qubit is prepared in (| +\rangle ) and therefore imaged with equal probability in the two tweezer locations (frames are averaged over several shots). Finally, the tweezers are recombined, the atoms are re-cooled, loss is re-filled, and the qubit state is reinitialized. This is one layer. The cycle then repeats 27 times. Supplementary Video 2: Teleportation-based logical algorithm with Steane [[7,1,3]] codes. Each group consists of 16 code blocks in a 4x4 grid, which are entangled into two independent 1D cluster states (eight blocks each) and further into 2D cluster states with adjacent layers in time.

Supplementary Video 3

Teleportation-based logical algorithm with tesseract, high-rate [[16,6,4]] codes. Each group consists of 8 code blocks in a 2x4 grid, which are all entangled into a 1D cluster state in space and further into a 2D cluster state with adjacent layers in time.

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Bluvstein, D., Geim, A.A., Li, S.H. et al. A fault-tolerant neutral-atom architecture for universal quantum computation. Nature (2025). https://doi.org/10.1038/s41586-025-09848-5

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Received: 25 June 2025

Accepted: 03 November 2025

Published: 10 November 2025

DOI: https://doi.org/10.1038/s41586-025-09848-5