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Quantum chips link distant qubits with a quantum interconnect: a physical channel that transfers a quantum state or helps establish entanglement between separate modules. The carrier depends on the hardware and distance. Superconducting devices can use microwave signals over short connections; photons and optical fiber can link separated nodes, sometimes with a transducer between microwave and optical frequencies. A remote operation can also be performed without shipping a qubit itself: modules share entanglement, then use local operations and classical messages to carry out a remote gate.
What does it mean to send information between qubits?
“Sending information” can describe different tasks. A link may transfer an unknown quantum state from one device to another, distribute entanglement so two devices share a quantum resource, or use that shared entanglement to perform a gate between qubits that remain in separate processors. These tasks are related, but they are not interchangeable.
Quantum information is not simply copied onto a carrier as if it were a classical bit. It must be transferred or encoded in a way that preserves its quantum state, including properties such as superposition and entanglement. This is difficult because interactions with the environment can disturb the state.
Which physical links can connect distant qubits?
There is no single interconnect used by every quantum computer. The design depends on the qubit technology, the distance between modules, and what operation the system needs to support.
#1 Best Overall
| Approach | What carries or enables the link | Where it fits | Main trade-offs |
|---|---|---|---|
| Microwave connection | Microwave fields or photons coupled to superconducting circuits | Nearby superconducting devices or processor nodes | Coupling and channel loss, wiring, thermal load, and noise |
| Microwave-to-optical transduction | A transducer converts a microwave quantum signal to an optical signal, or vice versa | Connecting microwave-based superconducting hardware to optical fiber | Conversion efficiency, added noise, bandwidth, and interface complexity |
| Photonic entanglement link | Photons from separate nodes interfere to help establish remote entanglement | Separated modules and networked systems | Photon loss, entanglement-generation rate, memory lifetime, and heralding |
| Neutral-atom cavity link | Atom–photon coupling through an optical cavity and photonic channel | Proposed modular neutral-atom processors | Cavity and interface performance, channel multiplexing, and experimental maturity |
Why microwave hardware may need an optical interface
Superconducting qubits operate in the microwave domain, while optical fiber is a natural carrier for longer-distance links. Connecting the two therefore requires a device that converts quantum signals between those frequency ranges without introducing too much noise or losing too much of the signal. NIST describes a research testbed using squeezed optical states sent over fiber and transducers at network nodes to pursue remote microwave entanglement. That is research infrastructure, not evidence of a generally deployed commercial interconnect.
Moving a qubit is not always networking
Some architectures can move ions between zones inside one device, or use shared modes and local connections to couple qubits. This is physical transport within a system; it is distinct from sending a signal between remote processor modules over a network link.
How can a network perform a gate without moving the qubit?
A common strategy uses photons to establish entanglement between network qubits, while the processor qubits keep their information locally. After a shared entangled pair is available, the modules can use quantum gate teleportation to mediate an operation between remote qubits.
- Prepare network qubits. Each module prepares a qubit that can interact with a photon.
- Send photons through the link. The photons travel through an optical channel and are interfered or measured according to the protocol.
- Herald success. A measurement result tells the modules whether remote entanglement was successfully established. If photons were lost or the attempt failed, the system can try again.
- Use the shared entanglement. The modules perform local quantum operations and exchange classical messages to implement the remote gate.
The classical messages are part of the protocol, so this method does not provide faster-than-light communication. The quantum resource is shared entanglement; the measurement outcomes and local corrections coordinate the operation.
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A 2025 Nature research report demonstrated distributed quantum computing across two trapped-ion modules separated by about 2 metres. The team generated entanglement between network qubits and used quantum gate teleportation to mediate deterministic two-qubit CZ interactions between circuit qubits; the report also describes distributed iSWAP and SWAP gates. This is a platform-specific demonstration, not proof that arbitrary commercial quantum chips can already be joined into a general-purpose network.
A 2025 PRX Quantum analysis of nanofiber optical cavities for neutral-atom modules predicted a Bell-pair generation rate of 105 per second under its modeled conditions. That figure is a theoretical projection, not a measured rate from a deployed network.
Independent reader supportYour contribution helps us test, update, and keep practical guides available for everyone.What limits the usefulness of an interconnect?
A link is only as useful as its end-to-end ability to deliver a good quantum resource at a useful rate. Important measures include signal loss, added noise, conversion efficiency, bandwidth, and how often entanglement is successfully generated. Efficiency by itself does not describe whether the whole link can support a processor’s workload.
- Loss: A photon that does not arrive cannot contribute to a successful photonic link attempt.
- Noise: A transducer or channel can disturb the quantum state, even when some signal is transmitted.
- Rate and memory: Probabilistic entanglement generation may require retries; the remote qubits must retain their states long enough for a usable pair to be established.
- Bandwidth and interface fit: The link must support the rate and signal format the processors can use, and a frequency-conversion interface may add complexity.
A 2026 review by Akihiko Sekine, Ryo Murakami, and Yoshiyasu Doi reports microwave-domain transduction efficiency above 99% for surveyed Josephson parametric converter approaches with low quantum-regime noise. For optical-domain nonlinear conversion experiments surveyed in the same review, reported efficiencies are about 0.1–0.5, with efficiency above 0.5 still difficult. These figures describe the review’s surveyed approaches, not universal values or end-to-end efficiencies for every interconnect.
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