Technology thesis · Quantum Technologies
high conviction emergingQuantum error correction
QEC crossed below-threshold (Google Willow, 2024) into commercial hardware (Quantinuum Helios, 48 logical qubits, 2025); the race is now logical error rate and magic-state throughput, not qubit count.
Position maintained continuously · last reviewed Jun 24, 2026
The thesis
Logical qubit error rate replaces physical qubit count as headline metric
Google Willow Dec 2024 below-threshold demonstration set the framing. 2025-2026 vendor headlines (IBM Heron, Quantinuum Helios, PsiQuantum Omega) increasingly cite logical error rate (10^-3 to 10^-6) rather than physical qubit count. This is the right metric for usefulness: 200 logical qubits with 10^-9 error rate enable quantum chemistry simulations of small molecules; 10,000 physical qubits with 10^-3 error rate do not.
State of the art (2026)
Quantum error correction crossed from theory into demonstrated reality with Google Willow (December 2024), which ran a distance-7 surface code below the error threshold with a real-time decoder and a logical qubit that outlived its best physical qubit. The frontier has since moved to commercial hardware: Quantinuum's Helios, launched November 2025, exposes 48 fully error-corrected logical qubits at a 2:1 encoding. IBM's Starling roadmap (200 logical qubits, 100 million gates by 2029) abandons the surface code for qLDPC codes to cut physical-qubit overhead. The open questions are now magic-state distillation throughput and whether Microsoft's disputed Majorana topological qubit replicates at all.
IBM Starling 2029 + PsiQuantum 2027-2028 + Quantinuum Helios are the three credible 100+ logical qubit paths
IBM Starling 2029 target: 200 logical qubits, 100M gates (publicly committed roadmap). PsiQuantum Brisbane 2027-2028 commercial fault-tolerant photonic device (with A$940M federal backstop). Quantinuum H2/Helios extension to ~100 logical qubits 2027 (trapped-ion scaling depends on multi-chamber architecture). Microsoft + AWS + Atom Computing + QuEra are credible but with less explicit 100+ logical milestone commitment.
Magic state factory throughput becomes the new bottleneck
Surface codes don't natively support T-gates → magic state distillation factories required, ~10:1 overhead per T-gate. Quantinuum + IBM + Google demonstrated factory preparation 2025-2026. Algorithmic improvements (game-changing biased-noise codes, transversal magic state injection) over the next 24 months determine whether useful applications need 10⁵ or 10⁶ logical qubits.
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Signal stack
Evidence stacked leading → lagging
Technology-native KPIs
Metrics that predict trajectory, tracked over time
Landscape map
Who builds what — and who depends on whom
Catalyst calendar
Dated events that will move the position
Technology roadmap
Milestones on the path to maturity
Watchlists
Companies, people and papers — each with a remove-by condition
Decision frameworks
The same call, framed for your desk
Thesis changelog
When our view changed, and why
Change our mind
5 disconfirming conditions
The rest is inside
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The full signal stack, technology-native KPIs tracked over time, the landscape of who depends on whom, the dated catalyst calendar, decision frameworks for every desk, live watchlists and the changelog of every time our call on Quantum error correction has changed — all live inside CanaryIQ.