Alice & Bob Achieve Hour-Long Qubit Stability, Surpassing Industry Benchmarks

Quantum computing startup Alice & Bob has announced a significant advancement in qubit stability, achieving over one hour of resistance to bit-flip errors. This represents a fourfold improvement over the company's previous record and a substantial leap beyond the stability typically observed in conventional qubits. This breakthrough directly addresses the inherent fragility of qubits, which are highly susceptible to decoherence. Alice & Bob's achievement significantly surpasses current industry benchmarks. While IBM's Eagle superconducting quantum processor, for example, attains 400 milliseconds of coherence, other systems exhibit coherence ranging from one to 34 milliseconds. Alice & Bob leverages proprietary "cat qubits," which, according to company statements, effectively eliminate one of the two primary error types, thereby enabling more efficient error-correcting codes. This contrasts with approaches such as IBM's planned Starling computer, which will primarily rely on advanced error detection technology. CTO and Co-founder Raphael Lescanne expressed confidence in the company's ability to meet its roadmap, citing the consistent progress in enhancing the stability of cat qubits. Alice & Bob remains on track to develop a fault-tolerant quantum computer with 100 logical qubits by 2030. Resolving qubit error correction is paramount to realizing the full potential of quantum systems across various sectors, including drug discovery, materials science, and cryptography.