Quantinuum Helps Award-Winning High Schooler Test Algorithm
By Amy Wolff For Quantinuum
For most high school students, summers are for hanging out, playing video games, and staying up too late. Well, most high-schoolers are not Max Bee-Lindgren, a senior at Decatur High School in Decatur, Georgia. In 2021, Max spent his summer calculating transition matrix elements, the rate at which atoms, molecules, and other quantum-mechanical systems change states when interacting with their environments.
One important calculation is the emission of light from an excited electron in an atom. This state change is difficult to model accurately on current (classical) computers. Quantum computers, like those being developed by Quantinuum, hold great promise for modeling quantum systems but require new algorithms to make efficient use of their capabilities in a way that is robust to noise.
“I’ve always wanted to know how things worked — more specifically — why things happen,” said Max. “When I was a kid, I would endlessly ask my parents ‘why.’ When they answered, it would just trigger more and more questions down an endless chain until eventually the answer would end up being ‘it’s a complicated physics thing we can’t explain.’ So, I figured if I wanted to actually know why things happen, I should probably learn physics.”
For several months last summer, Max had the chance to collaborate online with other physics fanatics, including his mentor, Dr. Dean Lee, a nuclear physics professor at Michigan State University, and Kenneth Choi, a freshman at MIT who created the original rodeo algorithm during his apprenticeship with Dr. Lee in 2020. They were also joined by MSU students Zhengrong Qian, Jacob Watkins, Gabriel Given and Joey Bonitati.
The team met several times a week to discuss new developments in the rodeo algorithm research, collaborate about next steps, and get any big news updates on the project. The time spent paid off when Max was notified that he, along with 39 other high schoolers from across the U.S., was a finalist in the Regeneron Science Talent (STS) Search, the nation’s oldest and most prestigious science and math competition for high school seniors.
Like many people, when a call from an unknown number came in on his phone, Max declined the call. But when the Washington, D.C., number called back a second time, he picked up and was “shocked” to discover he had made the competition’s top 40.
“Being a part of this intensive summer program has driven me to complete the project in the best way possible,” Max said. “Without the support of Dr. Lee and his team, I would still be researching, but not fully applying myself nor putting my experience into practice. It is nice to have a direct and present force driving me to succeed, and thanks to the STS program and my experiences, I’ve met a lot of amazing people who are as focused on physics as I am.”
Quantinuum is an integral partner in the success of this research project.
“The purpose of this collaboration is one of mutual benefits,” said Dr. David Hayes, a principal theorist at Quantinuum. “Professor Lee and his students get to test their theories on real hardware and identify any weaknesses in the proposal. Quantinuum benefits by helping the world get a little closer to identifying quantum algorithms that yield a computational advantage over classical algorithms.”
“Quantinuum is well served by the world-wide effort to advance these algorithms, so we try to identify the most promising ones and provide testbeds for them,” Hayes added. “Professor Lee's proposal caught our eye last year as a new idea for simulating quantum materials, which we believe to be the most promising avenue toward a near-term quantum advantage.”
The 2022 Regeneron Science Talent Search finalists were selected from more than 1,800 highly qualified entrants based on their projects’ scientific rigor and their potential to become world-changing scientists and leaders. Each finalist is awarded at least $25,000, and the top 10 awards range from $40,000 to $250,000.
“Max’s award is for the design of the two-state rodeo algorithm,” said Dr. Lee. “The potential promise of the rodeo algorithm lies in its ability to be robust against noise and exponentially more efficient than other well-known methods for quantum state preparation.”
Max shares his notebook with the Quantinuum theory group regularly and is looking forward to implementing his algorithm soon on the company’s System Model H1 quantum technologies, Powered by Honeywell.
“In the next few months, we’ll get a chance to run the two-state rodeo algorithm on the H1, which is very exciting,” Max stated. “The H1 is a good bit less error prone than other available systems, by an order of magnitude, so the results should be interesting as they unfold.”
“Max was a great person to work with,” noted Professor Lee. “No matter what I gave him, he never got really stuck on anything. Max truly loves his work, and he’s very humble. He has a maturity beyond his years, which will serve him well in future endeavors.”
While Max is unsure about his college choice for next year, he is certain of one thing, “I can’t wait to get to college to just study more physics.”
About Quantinuum
Quantinuum, the world’s largest integrated quantum company, pioneers powerful quantum computers and advanced software solutions. Quantinuum’s technology drives breakthroughs in materials discovery, cybersecurity, and next-gen quantum AI. With over 500 employees, including 370+ scientists and engineers, Quantinuum leads the quantum computing revolution across continents.
Quantinuum is pleased to announce that applications are now open for the Quantinuum SG Grand Challenge 2026, a global innovation challenge designed to bring together researchers, developers, scientists and innovators to explore practical applications of quantum computing.
Organized by Quantinuum and supported by Singapore's National Quantum Office and Aqora, the three-month program aims to foster collaboration across academia, industry and the quantum developer community while supporting the continued growth of Singapore's quantum ecosystem.
A Platform for Quantum Computing Innovation
Participants will work in teams to develop solutions across a range of challenge areas, including chemistry and molecular simulation, optimization, AI for quantum systems, quantum error correction, condensed matter and materials science, and open innovation. Throughout the program, participants will have access to mentoring, technical enablement and Quantinuum quantum computing resources.
Singapore Grand Finale
Selected finalist teams will be invited to present their work at the Grand Finale hosted in Singapore before representatives from academia, and industry. The event will celebrate innovative applications of quantum computing while providing an opportunity for participants to engage with Singapore's growing quantum community.
Join the Challenge
The Quantinuum SG Grand Challenge welcomes participants from around the world. Whether you are an experienced quantum researcher or beginning your quantum computing journey, the program offers an opportunity to collaborate, learn and contribute to the development of practical quantum applications.
Applications are now open. Spaces are limited and subject to review and approval.
- Researchers from Quantinuum, Caltech, the University of Chicago, and Harvard created a rare topologically ordered state of matter on Quantinuum's System Model H2 and used it to perform protected universal quantum gates with non-Abelian anyons.
- The work explores an alternative approach to fault tolerance by using topological properties to protect quantum information. This could reduce the need for magic state distillation, which can (in some circumstances) be resource-intensive.
- Quantinuum continues to show leadership in fault tolerance, with successful demonstrations spanning world record error rates to exotic approaches like topological computing
Quantum computing is all about putting the exotic properties of physics to work. Qubits can exist in two states at once, like the famous cat that is both alive and dead. Qubits can also be entangled, where the state of one will instantaneously affect the state of another - even when they have no way to “talk” to each other. Qubits can even be teleported, moving a quantum state from one place to another without physically moving it through space.
These features give quantum computing its power. But the ‘spooky’ nature of quantum computing doesn’t stop there: our quantum computers are potent enough to make exotic states of matter out of our qubits, and to perform calculations that would warp the mind of more traditional thinkers.
A new approach
In a recent paper published in Nature, researchers at Quantinuum teamed up with Caltech, the University of Chicago, and Harvard to create a rare ‘topologically ordered’ state of matter from our qubits.
When the qubits become ‘topologically ordered’, they become more than individual particles, now ‘related’ to each other in a specific way. This is like how hydrogen and oxygen act as individual gas particles alone, but you can put them together in a certain way so that they become water, a liquid, and an entirely different creature.
When the qubits become topologically ordered, the quantum information that they carried individually gets spread out over the whole system, which acts as a sort of protection from noise. This is like how a net makes a stronger barrier than a bunch of un-knotted ropes.
Once the researchers had topologically ordered qubits, they used the exotic particles that resulted (called non-Abelian anyons) to compute, performing error-protected gates and measurements.
To perform gates, the researchers 'braided' the anyons, which is like changing the shape of the “net”. This is something like the children’s game ‘cats cradle’. Through a sequence of changes to the “net”, the quantum computer can perform full calculations, one day helping scientists to understand the secrets hidden in the world around us.
Why go to such trouble? Well, for the love of discovery of course - but the team had an additional, specific motivation. One of the biggest challenges in building practical quantum computers is protecting them from errors while still being able to perform every operation needed for computation (this is referred to as universality).
This work takes a fresh approach to this challenge. Unlike traditional quantum error correction, the special properties of topological matter enable a universal set of fault tolerant gates without relying on expensive magic state distillation.
Why this matters
Quantum error correction is essential for large-scale quantum computing. While it protects fragile quantum information from noise by turning delicate physical qubits into robust logical qubits, it also introduces a significant constraint: not every quantum gate can be performed directly on logical qubits.
For decades, the standard solution has been to supplement error-corrected operations with magic states. These specially prepared quantum resources enable universal computation but can come at a steep cost - in many estimates of future fault-tolerant quantum computers, magic state preparation dominates both the physical qubit count and the runtime of useful algorithms.
Reducing this overhead has therefore become an important goal in quantum computing. This new approach may significantly reduce the cost by enabling the ‘topological preparation’ of magic states, eliding expensive protocols like distillation. If universal computation can be performed without large-scale magic state distillation, quantum computers could require significantly fewer physical qubits and spend much less time generating computational resources before running useful algorithms.
We will never stop exploring
While there is still considerable work ahead to understand the practical implementation and scalability of these ideas, this result expands the landscape of what's possible in quantum fault tolerance.
Of course, this impressive demonstration describes just one approach we are taking to fault tolerance at scale. We will continue to push forward with topological computing alongside more traditional approaches to quantum error correction, as well as exploring everything we can imagine in between. We are looking at a number of ways to reduce the resource cost of magic states in particular, and are making strides in multiple dimensions. With machines that are both flexible and accurate enough to do it all, who can resist?
- Quantinuum continues its progress toward fault-tolerant quantum computing, with a series of peer-reviewed breakthroughs in fault-tolerant operations.
- Our progress is not only scientific; it is commercial. By improving logical-qubit reliability and encoding efficiency, Quantinuum is reducing the resource overhead required to scale its quantum computers toward commercially useful workloads.
- These results were achieved on commercial Quantinuum hardware, reinforcing that our architecture is not just setting new standards, but building a practical foundation for customers, partners, and researchers preparing for the fault-tolerant era.
Fault-tolerant quantum computing is the threshold the industry must cross before quantum computers can solve the hardest, highest-value problems with confidence. To be commercially useful at scale, the question is not simply who can build more qubits. It is who can build reliable, efficient, scalable systems that reduce technical risk and accelerate the path to commercial usefulness.
Quantinuum is progressing on that path.
Last year, in partnership with Microsoft, we published a breakthrough in logical computing, demonstrating logical qubits that outperformed their physical counterparts by a factor of 800. We are proud to announce that this work is now being published in Nature, one of the most highly regarded scientific journals in the world.
This work highlights our leading fidelities, as shown in Table 1:
Since then, we’ve accelerated our efforts to reach large-scale fault tolerance and advanced what we believe to be the core building blocks of fault-tolerant quantum computing, from logical-qubit teleportation and multiple error-correction breakthroughs to one of the first meaningful computations using logical qubits. Importantly, these results were achieved on commercial Quantinuum hardware, demonstrating not just scientific progress, but a practical and efficient path toward scalable, customer-ready fault tolerance.
A Recap of Our Recent Technical Progress
Since the work with Microsoft, we achieved a milestone years ahead of schedule, demonstrating high-fidelity teleportation of a logical qubit, which was published in Science, one of the world’s most prestigious journals. Later, we beat our own record in this crucial fault tolerance milestone, thanks to continued improvements to our System Model H2’s fidelity.
Then, a series of results demonstrating more error-correcting milestones (and codes):
- Better than physical results in a high-rate non-local code,
- First-ever demonstration of a single-shot error correcting code (which significantly reduces resource requirements) in 4 dimensions
- Extending qubit lifetimes by 10x with a concatenated code
- Observed fault-tolerance thresholds with concatenated codes
- High fidelity magic states and a fully fault tolerant universal gate set in two different papers
Recently, we topped ourselves yet again by performing one of the first meaningful computations with logical qubits – exploring key questions in materials and magnetism, using logical qubits with better error rates than their physical counterparts. This result also includes a leading “encoding rate” squeezing 48 logical qubits out of just 98 physical qubits, emphasizing how our architecture helps to support large scale fault tolerance without enormous resource costs.
It is worth noting that all these results were achieved on our commercial hardware, not on one-off laboratory test-stands – reflecting the performance that we are able to deliver to our customers.
We also did crucial theoretical work, exploring new options for error correction that can reduce resource requirements, time to solution, and shorten the timeline to large scale fault tolerance.
Commercial Implications and the Road Ahead
We believe the commercial implication is clear: Quantinuum is reducing the uncertainty around the path to fault-tolerant quantum computing. Our architecture, hardware fidelity, full-stack control, and error-correction progress are converging into a practical roadmap for systems that can support valuable scientific and commercial workloads.
For those evaluating when quantum computing will become strategically relevant, we believe the signal is also increasingly clear: the fault-tolerant era is no longer a distant concept. It is becoming an engineering reality, and Quantinuum is leading the way.