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Google shows "magic state cultivation" cutting errors 40-fold on its Willow chip

Oct 15, 2026

In Science on Oct. 15, 2026, Google Quantum AI reported running "magic state cultivation" on its Willow processor. The technique grows high-quality magic states, the scarce ingredient error-protected qubits need for a full set of operations, and cut their errors about 40-fold, reaching 99.99% fidelity.

Why it matters

Making magic states was expected to eat up much of a future fault-tolerant machine. Showing a cheaper method works on real hardware could shrink the quantum computer needed for useful tasks.

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