Quantum computers capable of correcting their own errors usually require hundreds of thousands of qubits. A Canadian start-up, Nord Quantique, says it has found a way to drastically reduce that number to just a few hundred by developing a novel, more efficient type of qubit.

The team has created a superconducting cavity qubit that uses photons bouncing inside a microwave-filled chamber. Their key innovation lies inmultimode encoding, where multiple properties of photons are used simultaneously to store information, making it more resistant to common quantum errors.

According to researchers, this approach allows each qubit to store data in a four-dimensional mathematical space, offering built-in redundancy.

If successful, Nord Quantique's method could pave the way for quantum computers that are up to 50 times smaller and 10 times more energy efficient than current systems.

However, experts remain cautious. So far, the technology has been demonstrated on a single qubit and has yet to be applied in real quantum computations. The company aims to scale its system to over 100 qubits by 2029, though significant technical challenges remain.

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