Quantinuum has unveiled its new trapped-ion quantum hardware, Helios, featuring 96 qubits and advanced ion management through a four-way intersection. The system improves on previous models by maintaining high fidelity while scaling up qubit counts. As a test, it simulated aspects of superconductivity using the Fermi-Hubbard model.
On November 5, 2025, Quantinuum announced Helios, a significant upgrade to its trapped-ion quantum computing hardware. Previously limited to 56 qubits, Helios now supports 96 qubits without degrading performance. "We’ve kept and actually even improved the two qubit gate fidelity," said Quantinuum VP Jenni Strabley.
The hardware's design centers on a loop-and-legs layout, with ions rotated around a central loop like a hard drive. A four-way intersection connects the loop to two operational legs, allowing precise routing. "We spin that ring almost like a hard drive, really, and whenever the ion that we want to gate gets close to the junction, there’s a decision that happens," explained David Hayes, Quantinuum’s director of Computational Design and Theory. This setup enables all-to-all connectivity, facilitating efficient entanglement and error correction, such as a tesseract-based code previously demonstrated with Microsoft.
Helios supports dynamic qubit reassignment via its Guppy SDK, based on Python with added programming constructs like FOR loops and IF conditionals. It can run 94 qubits with error detection or configure 96 hardware qubits into 48 logical error-corrected qubits using a distance-four concatenated code, capable of fixing up to two simultaneous errors.
Researchers applied Helios to the Fermi-Hubbard model, simulating electron pairing in superconductivity. Despite an average of three errors per circuit, the system yielded near-perfect results for complex scenarios, including a laser pulse inducing temporary superconductivity at room temperature. "It’s maybe a technical point, but I think it’s very important technical point, which is [that] the circuits that we ran, they all had errors... You still get almost the perfect result," noted Henrik Dreyer from Quantinuum.
Looking ahead, Helios serves as a bridge to future grid-based processors, refining junction reliability for scalable quantum systems. Strabley indicated ongoing improvements to enhance performance over time.