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arXiv:2511.08493 · Nature

Reinforcement Learning Control of Quantum Error Correction

Volodymyr Sivak, Alexis Morvan, Michael Broughton, Matthew Neeley, Alec Eickbusch, Dmitry Abanin, Amira Abbas, Rajeev Acharya, Laleh Aghababaie Beni, Georg Aigeldinger, Ross Alcaraz, Sayra Alcaraz, Trond I. Andersen, Markus Ansmann, Frank Arute, Kunal Arya, Walt Askew, Nikita Astrakhantsev, Juan Atalaya, Brian Ballard, Joseph C. Bardin, Hector Bates, Andreas Bengtsson, Majid Bigdeli Karimi, Alexander Bilmes, Simon Bilodeau, Felix Borjans, Alexandre Bourassa, Jenna Bovaird, Dylan Bowers, Leon Brill, Peter Brooks, David A. Browne, Brett Buchea, Bob B. Buckley, Tim Burger, Brian Burkett, Nicholas Bushnell, Jamal Busnaina, Anthony Cabrera, Juan Campero, Hung-Shen Chang, Silas Chen, Ben Chiaro, Liang-Ying Chih, Agnetta Y. Cleland, Bryan Cochrane, Matt Cockrell, Josh Cogan, Roberto Collins, Paul Conner, Harold Cook, Rodrigo G. Cortiñas, William Courtney, Alexander L. Crook, Ben Curtin, Martin Damyanov, Sayan Das, Dripto M. Debroy, Sean Demura, Paul Donohoe, Ilya Drozdov, Andrew Dunsworth, Valerie Ehimhen, Aviv Moshe Elbag, Lior Ella, Mahmoud Elzouka, David Enriquez, Catherine Erickson, Vinicius S. Ferreira, Marcos Flores, Leslie Flores Burgos, Ebrahim Forati, Jeremiah Ford, Austin G. Fowler, Brooks Foxen, Masaya Fukami, Alan Wing Lun Fung, Lenny Fuste, Suhas Ganjam, Gonzalo Garcia, Christopher Garrick, Robert Gasca, Helge Gehring, Robert Geiger, Élie Genois, William Giang, Dar Gilboa, James E. Goeders, Edward C. Gonzales, Raja Gosula, Stijn J. de Graaf, Alejandro Grajales Dau, Dietrich Graumann, Joel Grebel, Alex Greene, Jonathan A. Gross, Jose Guerrero, Loïck Le Guevel, Tan Ha, Steve Habegger, Tanner Hadick, Ali Hadjikhani, Matthew P. Harrigan, Sean D. Harrington, Jeanne Hartshorn, Stephen Heslin, Paula Heu, Oscar Higgott, Reno Hiltermann, Hsin-Yuan Huang, Mike Hucka, Christopher Hudspeth, Ashley Huff, William J. Huggins, Evan Jeffrey, Shaun Jevons, Zhang Jiang, Xiaoxuan Jin, Chaitali Joshi, Pavol Juhas, Andreas Kabel, Dvir Kafri, Hui Kang, Kiseo Kang, Amir H. Karamlou, Ryan Kaufman, Kostyantyn Kechedzhi, Tanuj Khattar, Mostafa Khezri, Seon Kim, Can M. Knaut, Bryce Kobrin, Fedor Kostritsa, John Mark Kreikebaum, Ryuho Kudo, Ben Kueffler, Arun Kumar, Vladislav D. Kurilovich, Vitali Kutsko, Nathan Lacroix, David Landhuis, Tiano Lange-Dei, Brandon W. Langley, Pavel Laptev, Kim-Ming Lau, Justin Ledford, Joy Lee, Kenny Lee, Brian J. Lester, Wendy Leung, Lily Li, Wing Yan Li, Ming Li, Alexander T. Lill, William P. Livingston, Matthew T. Lloyd, Aditya Locharla, Laura De Lorenzo, Daniel Lundahl, Aaron Lunt, Sid Madhuk, Aniket Maiti, Ashley Maloney, Salvatore Mandrà, Leigh S. Martin, Orion Martin, Eric Mascot, Paul Masih Das, Dmitri Maslov, Melvin Mathews, Cameron Maxfield, Jarrod R. McClean, Matt McEwen, Seneca Meeks, Kevin C. Miao, Zlatko K. Minev, Reza Molavi, Sebastian Molina, Shirin Montazeri, Charles Neill, Michael Newman, Anthony Nguyen, Murray Nguyen, Chia-Hung Ni, Murphy Yuezhen Niu, Logan Oas, Raymond Orosco, Kristoffer Ottosson, Alice Pagano, Agustin Di Paolo, Sherman Peek, David Peterson, Alex Pizzuto, Elias Portoles, Rebecca Potter, Orion Pritchard, Michael Qian, Chris Quintana, Arpit Ranadive, Matthew J. Reagor, Rachel Resnick, David M. Rhodes, Daniel Riley, Gabrielle Roberts, Roberto Rodriguez, Emma Ropes, Lucia B. De Rose, Eliott Rosenberg, Emma Rosenfeld, Dario Rosenstock, Elizabeth Rossi, Pedram Roushan, David A. Rower, Robert Salazar, Kannan Sankaragomathi, Murat Can Sarihan, Kevin J. Satzinger, Max Schaefer, Sebastian Schroeder, Henry F. Schurkus, Aria Shahingohar, Michael J. Shearn, Aaron Shorter, Noah Shutty, Vladimir Shvarts, Spencer Small, W. Clarke Smith, David A. Sobel, Barrett Spells, Sofia Springer, George Sterling, Jordan Suchard, Aaron Szasz, Alexander Sztein, Madeline Taylor, Jothi Priyanka Thiruraman, Douglas Thor, Dogan Timucin, Eifu Tomita, Alfredo Torres, M. Mert Torunbalci, Hao Tran, Abeer Vaishnav, Justin Vargas, Sergey Vdovichev, Guifre Vidal, Catherine Vollgraff Heidweiller, Meghan Voorhees, Steven Waltman, Jonathan Waltz, Shannon X. Wang, Brayden Ware, James D. Watson, Yonghua Wei, Travis Weidel, Theodore White, Kristi Wong, Bryan W. K. Woo, Christopher J. Wood, Maddy Woodson, Cheng Xing, Z. Jamie Yao, Ping Yeh, Bicheng Ying, Juhwan Yoo, Noureldin Yosri, Elliot Young, Grayson Young, Adam Zalcman, Ran Zhang, Yaxing Zhang, Ningfeng Zhu, Nicholas Zobrist, Zhenjie Zou, Ryan Babbush, Dave Bacon, Sergio Boixo, Yu Chen, Zijun Chen, Michel Devoret, Monica Hansen, Jeremy Hilton, Cody Jones, Julian Kelly, Alexander N. Korotkov, Erik Lucero, Anthony Megrant, Hartmut Neven, William D. Oliver, Ganesh Ramachandran, Vadim Smelyanskiy, Paul V. Klimov

quant-phSubmitted Nov 11, 2025• Announced Nov 12, 2025• 5 citations
v1 · Nov 11, 2025v2 · Dec 5, 2025v3 · Mar 7, 2026v4 · Jun 19, 2026
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Abstract

The promise of fault-tolerant quantum computing is challenged by environmental drift that relentlessly degrades the quality of quantum operations. The contemporary solution, halting the entire quantum computation for recalibration, is unsustainable for the long runtimes of the future algorithms. We address this challenge by unifying calibration with computation, granting the quantum error correction process a dual role: its error detection events are not only used to correct the logical quantum state, but are also repurposed as a learning signal, teaching a reinforcement learning agent to continuously steer the physical control parameters and stabilize the quantum system during the computation. We experimentally demonstrate this framework on a superconducting processor, improving the logical error rate stability of the surface code 3.5-fold against injected drift and pushing the performance beyond what is achievable with state-of-the-art traditional calibration and human-expert tuning. Simulations of surface codes up to distance-15 confirm the scalability of our method, revealing an optimization speed that is independent of the system size. This work thus enables a new paradigm: a quantum computer that learns to self-improve directly from its errors and never stops computing.

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This paper presents a novel approach to quantum error correction (QEC) leveraging reinforcement learning (RL). The core idea is to develop an algorithm capable of dynamically learning and adapting QEC code parameters based on the evolving noise environment. Traditional QEC codes are often pre-defined and may not optimally perform in all scenarios. This research proposes a system where network nodes autonomously adjust the code parameters using an RL framework, reacting to error detection results and feedback signals. The system's ability to self-optimize based on real-time noise characteristics represents a significant advancement in QEC design. The key objective is to enhance error correction performance by adapting to the dynamic nature of quantum noise. The theoretical framework and the proposed algorithm are detailed within this document, highlighting the potential for improved resilience in quantum communication and computation.
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