Physicists teleport surface code logical states across a 125-qubit superconducting processor

Researchers have teleported the logical states of surface codes — the leading error-correcting codes for quantum computers — using a superconducting quantum processor with 125 qubits, reaching code distances of up to 7. The work, published in Nature Physics, demonstrates a many-body teleportation transition in which the success of teleportation depends on the strength of entangling gates applied across the processor.

Quantum teleportation is often discussed for individual qubits, but fault-tolerant quantum computers will encode information in multiqubit logical states protected by error correction. Teleporting such protected states is desirable for robust quantum information processing, for example in distributed quantum computing architectures. The obstacle is scale: producing well-protected logical states requires large numbers of physical qubits, which has made teleportation of surface code states a formidable experimental challenge.

The surface code harnesses long-range entanglement to protect logical quantum information against errors. In the new experiment, the team tuned local entangling gates uniformly across the processor and mapped out a phase diagram for successful teleportation of the logical state. The measurements revealed a finite threshold: teleportation succeeds when the entangling gates exceed a critical strength, marking a transition in the many-body dynamics of the code.

The researchers also found a way to raise that threshold. By applying coherent qubit rotations that inject non-classical magic resources, they boosted the entangling threshold and restored the duality symmetry of the surface code’s topological phase. According to the authors, this serves as a guiding principle to minimize the amount of entanglement needed to achieve many-body teleportation.

Beyond the phase diagram, the study examined how different types of coherent errors affect the teleportation threshold. Figures in the published paper show the entangling threshold for coherent errors injected along the X axis and, separately, for coherent errors injected along the X plus Z axis, where a higher threshold was observed. The paper also reports the teleportation of arbitrary logical states, indicating that the protocol is not limited to a single fixed logical input.

The measurements included stabilizer parities before and after teleportation, allowing the team to verify that the logical information encoded in the surface code was transferred through the processor.

The significance of the result lies in connecting quantum teleportation to the physics of phase transitions. Rather than treating teleportation as a fixed circuit primitive, the experiment frames it as a dynamical process with a controllable threshold, governed by the entangling strength and by the quantum resources injected into the system. This perspective suggests design principles for future experiments that must move logical quantum information between distant parts of a processor or between separate processors.

The authors state that their results establish the potential for surface code teleportation to enable distributed fault-tolerant quantum computation.

As with any demonstration on current hardware, the experiment was performed on a specific superconducting processor under laboratory conditions, and the reported phase diagram and thresholds characterize that system. Nevertheless, the demonstration of teleportation at code distance 7, together with a demonstrated method for raising the entangling threshold, marks a step toward using teleportation as a practical tool in fault-tolerant quantum computing.

Subject of Research: Teleportation of surface code logical states on a superconducting quantum processor

Article Title: Teleportation transition of surface codes on a superconducting quantum processor

Article References: Zou, Y., Xia, H.-K., Zhang, A., Zhu, X., Jin, F., Wang, Q., Gao, Y., Zhang, C., Wang, N., Cui, Z., Shen, F., Bao, Z., Zhu, Z., Zhong, J., Liu, G., Yang, J.-N., Han, Y., He, Y., Shen, J., … Wang, H. (2026). Teleportation transition of surface codes on a superconducting quantum processor. Nature Physics. https://doi.org/10.1038/s41567-026-03484-0

Image Credits: AI Generated

DOI: 10.1038/s41567-026-03484-0

Keywords: quantum teleportation, surface code, superconducting qubits, quantum error correction, fault tolerance, phase transition, entanglement threshold, logical qubits, quantum computing, magic resources, duality symmetry, Nature Physics