Quantum Stops for Qubits express
On a silicon chip that resembles a neighborhood, qubits, electrons with spin, live in separate 'houses.' Previously, neighbors could only chat over the fence, but now a road has been laid between them: along it, a qubit can ride to any of the four stops. The road is a bus that carries the electron without losing its quantum state.
At a stop, qubits meet and perform operations: one twists the other's spin like a key in a lock. To learn the result, you don't have to look at the charge — the spin is measured directly, without destroying it. This way, a processor of five qubits was assembled and wired into the desired circuit: a square with parity checks along both horizontal and vertical lines. It's like traffic lights at an intersection monitoring for traffic errors.
Such entanglement is a record for silicon spins. Previously, more than three was impossible. Now we can build quantum error-correcting codes: if one qubit stumbles, the others will notice and fix it. The road between stops is ready, the traffic lights work — all that's left is to teach the city self-repair.
The electron is carried along the bus at about 10 meters per second — faster than a person can run, but slower than a cyclist rides.
The idea of shuttling qubits along a bus echoes the quantum teleportation from 'Star Trek,' only instead of distant planets, it's neighboring stops on a chip.