Researchers from Google and the University of California Santa Barbara have taken an important step towards the goal of building a large-scale quantum computer.

Writing in the journal Quantum Science and Technology, they present a new process for creating superconducting interconnects, which are compatible with existing superconducting qubit technology.

The race to develop the first large-scale error-corrected quantum computer is extremely competitive, and the process itself is complex. Whereas classical computers encode data into binary digits (bits) that exist in one of two states, a quantum computer stores information in quantum bits (qubits) that may be entangled with each other and placed in a superposition of both states simultaneously.