The technique used by Google, known as surface code, works by connecting each qubit in a two-dimensional grid to its nearest neighbours. This relies on a relatively large number of qubits working together and requires the system to reach 1mn qubits or more to perform useful calculations.

Tech giants claims that the decades-long race to build a workable quantum computer may finally be entering its home stretch.

Major tech firms race to build full-scale quantum computers by 2030.Scaling qubits faces key challenges like interference and error correction.Differ