Abstract Scaling superconducting quantum processors toward fault-tolerant operation fundamentally necessitates architectures that transcend the practical limits of monolithic chips. Modular processors connected by low-loss superconducting links offer a promising route. However, implementing high-fidelity entangling gates between remote fixed-frequency qubits remains a central challenge. Here, we propose a distributed architecture in which a pair of synchronously modulated double-transmon couplers mediates the interaction between two fixed-frequency transmons housed in separate packages and linked by a macroscopic 25-cm coaxial cable. This scheme enables the on-demand activation of a tunable nonlocal ZZ interaction while strongly suppressing residual static coupling, allowing the superconducting link to function as a gate-native interconnect rather than merely a state-transfer channel. This paradigm achieves an exceptional on/off ratio exceeding 10 6 while strictly preserving intrinsic qubit coherence. Circuit-level numerical simulations under experimentally realistic parameters demonstrate a remote controlled-Z gate fidelity of 99.99%, effectively rendering the macroscopic module boundaries computationally invisible. This hardware-efficient framework offers a promising route beyond the practical limits of monolithic scaling and provides a foundation for distributed quantum error-correction networks.
Abstract Scaling superconducting quantum processors toward fault-tolerant operation fundamentally necessitates architectures that transcend the practical limits of monolithic chips. Modular processors connected by low-loss superconducting links offer a promising route. However, implementing high-fidelity entangling gates between remote fixed-frequency qubits remains a central challenge. Here, we propose a distributed architecture in which a pair of synchronously modulated double-transmon couplers mediates the interaction between two fixed-frequency transmons housed in separate packages and linked by a macroscopic 25-cm coaxial cable. This scheme enables the on-demand activation of a tunable nonlocal ZZ interaction while strongly suppressing residual static coupling, allowing the superconducting link to function as a gate-native interconnect rather than merely a state-transfer channel. This paradigm achieves an exceptional on/off ratio exceeding 10 6 while strictly preserving intrinsic qubit coherence. Circuit-level numerical simulations under experimentally realistic parameters demonstrate a remote controlled-Z gate fidelity of 99.99%, effectively rendering the macroscopic module boundaries computationally invisible. This hardware-efficient framework offers a promising route beyond the practical limits of monolithic scaling and provides a foundation for distributed quantum error-correction networks.
Tunable Nonlocal ZZ Interaction for Remote Controlled-Z Gates Between Distributed Fixed-Frequency Qubits
Scaling superconducting quantum processors toward fault-tolerant operation will likely require architectures that extend beyond monolithic chips. Modular processors connected by low-loss superconducting links provide a promising route, but implementing entangling gates between remote fixed-frequency qubits remains challenging. Here we propose a distributed architecture in which two synchronously controlled double-transmon couplers mediate the interaction between fixed-frequency transmons in separate packages connected by a 25-cm coaxial cable. The scheme activates a tunable nonlocal ZZ interaction on demand while suppressing residual static coupling, allowing the superconducting link to function as a gate-native interconnect rather than solely as a state-transfer channel. Circuit-level simulations show an on/off ratio exceeding 106 and a remote controlled-Z gate with a projected coherent fidelity of 99.99% under experimentally relevant parameters. Open-system simulations further indicate that, within the representative Markovian noise model considered here, endpoint-qubit decoherence is the largest contribution to gate infidelity, while photon loss in the retained cable modes remains smaller but non-negligible. These results identify DTC-mediated tunable nonlocal coupling as a promising gate primitive for modular superconducting processors based on fixed-frequency qubits.
Direct entangling gates between spatially separated qubits are a key capability for modular quantum computing. They enable nonlocal quantum circuits to be executed across different processor modules, thereby alleviating single-chip scaling constraints and expanding the effective connectivity of the system. Here, we propose and numerically investigate a remote adiabatic controlled-Z gate between two frequency-tunable superconducting qubits connected by a multi-mode coaxial cable. The cable-mediated interaction enables the gate to be implemented without additional tunable couplers, preserving a simple circuit architecture. For a 30-cm cable, simulations incorporating ten standing-wave modes yield an optimized gate infidelity of 4.71×10−7 with a duration of 376.7 ns in the absence of decoherence. The gate maintains high fidelity under qubit-frequency fluctuations and millimeter-scale cable-length variations. Calculations for 50- and 100-cm cable situations demonstrate its potential for even larger cryogenic systems. These results provide a promising approach to extending high-fidelity quantum operations beyond individual chips and toward scalable, interconnected superconducting quantum processors.
Superconducting quantum processors offer a promising path toward practical quantum computing. However, building a fault-tolerant quantum computer with millions of superconducting qubits is hindered by wiring density, packaging constraints, and fabrication yield. Interconnecting medium-scale processors via low-loss superconducting links provides a promising alternative. Yet, achieving high-fidelity two-qubit gates across such channels remains difficult. Here, we show that a multimode coaxial cable can mediate high-contrast interaction between spatially separated superconducting qubits. Leveraging interference between cable modes, we can implement high-fidelity controlled-Z and ZZ-free iSWAP gates by simply modulating qubit frequencies. Numerical simulations under realistic coherence and coupling parameters predict fidelities above 99% for both gate schemes. Our approach provides a versatile building block for modular superconducting architectures and facilitates distributed quantum error correction and large-scale fault-tolerant quantum computing.
Hybrid superconducting architectures combining different types of qubits offer a promising platform for exploiting their complementary advantages, yet high-fidelity entangling gates remain challenging because of strong nonlinearities and residual qubit-qubit interactions. Here, we propose a high-fidelity controlled-Z (CZ) gate for a hybrid circuit comprising a fluxonium qubit, a fixed-frequency transmon qubit, and a flux-tunable transmon coupler. By modulating only the external magnetic flux applied to the coupler, the qubit-qubit interaction is dynamically engineered for conditional-phase accumulation while the residual interaction is suppressed at idle, mitigating spectator-induced errors. We employ a low-dimensional Fourier-cosine pulse parameterization and a physically motivated cost function to independently suppress conditional-phase errors and leakage from the computational subspace. Numerical simulations demonstrate that a microwave-free CZ gate can be realized within 25ns, with an average gate fidelity exceeding 99.99% and leakage below 10−5. Using experimentally relevant superconducting-qubit parameters and accounting for decoherence, the proposed scheme maintains a CZ-gate fidelity of approximately 99.9%. We further extend the analysis to larger coupled architectures and find that the CZ-gate infidelity remains below 10−4 in the presence of spectator qubits. These results establish single-parameter flux control as a simple and robust approach for realizing high-fidelity entangling gates in heterogeneous superconducting quantum architectures.
Scalable superconducting quantum processors require balancing critical constraints in coherence, control complexity, and spectral crowding. Fixed-frequency architectures suppress flux noise and simplify control via all-microwave operations but remain limited by residual ZZ crosstalk. Here we propose a microwave-activated three-qubit gate protocol for fixed-frequency transmon qubits in the large-detuning regime (∣Δ∣≫g), leveraging the third-order nonlinear interaction to coherently exchange ∣001⟩↔∣110⟩ states. By incorporating a phase-compensated optimization protocol, numerical simulations demonstrate a high average gate fidelity exceeding 99.9%. Systematic error analysis identifies static long-range ZZ coupling as the dominant error source in multi-qubit systems, which can be suppressed via operations in the large-detuning regime (∼1 GHz). The protocol maintains process fidelities exceeding 98% under decoherence, while demonstrating intrinsic robustness to fabrication-induced parameter variations and compatibility with existing all-microwave two-qubit gate architectures. This hardware-efficient strategy advances scalable quantum computing systems by improving coherence properties, reducing spectral congestion, and expanding the experimental toolkit for error-resilient quantum operations in the noisy intermediate-scale quantum era.
For building a scalable quantum processor with superconducting qubits, the ZZ interaction is of great concert because of relevant for implementing two-qubit gates, and the close contact between gate infidelity and its residual. Two-qubit gates with fidelity beyond fault-tolerant thresholds have been demonstrated using the ZZ interaction. However, as the performance of quantum processor improves, the residual static-ZZ can also become a performance-limiting factor for quantum gate operations and quantum error correction. Here, we introduce a scalable superconducting architecture for addressing this challenge. We demonstrate that by coupling two superconducting qubits with opposite-sign anharmonicities together, high-contrast ZZ interaction can be realized in this architecture. Thus, we can control ZZ interaction with high on/off ratio for implementing two-qubit CZ gate, or suppress it during the two-qubit gate operations using XY interaction (e.g. iSWAP). Meanwhile, the ZZ crosstalk related to neighboring spectator qubits can also be heavily suppressed in fixed coupled multi-qubit systems. This architecture could provide a promising way towards scalable superconducting quantum processor with high gate fidelity and low qubit crosstalk.