The Daily · Tuesday 27 October 2026

The day in brief

IBM researchers report entangling two logical qubits on a 120-qubit superconducting processor, with Bell-state fidelity above 93% ¹. OpenAI said its models produced an existence proof for QCD and related four-dimensional quantum field theories, but it has not released the proof materials ².

NIST’s final IR 8547 sets 2035 as the point after which quantum-vulnerable public-key cryptography will be disallowed under NIST standards and guidelines ³. Federal systems identified as high value, high impact or otherwise highly sensitive face earlier targets for post-quantum key establishment and digital signatures ³. Pasqal reports three relaxation patterns in a 256-atom simulation of a two-dimensional quantum magnet ⁴.

IBM researchers report 99.00% mean fidelity for quantum state transfer between two 120-qubit processors ⁵. A University of Chicago and IBM team reports a protocol that learns readout errors and measurement backaction from strings of three repeated measurements ⁸. RWTH Aachen University and DESY researchers trained 64-qubit circuits on classical computers before running them on IBM’s ibmberlin processor ¹⁰.

The five

• IBM Team Entangles Logical Qubits on Nighthawk Processor

  Researchers report entangling two logical qubits on a 120-qubit superconducting processor, with Bell-state fidelity above 93%. Their experiments also show how excluding underperforming components improved a distance-5 surface code and how fast resets helped stabilize repeated measurements.

  Source · arXiv

• OpenAI Says Its Models Proved QCD Exists

  OpenAI says its models produced a mathematical existence proof for quantum chromodynamics and related four-dimensional quantum field theories. The company is withholding the physics proof materials while an outside group led by David Gross examines the result.

  Source · OpenAI

• NIST Finalizes PQC Migration Guidance, Sets 2035 Cutoff

  NIST’s final IR 8547 sets a transition schedule for quantum-vulnerable public-key cryptography, while federal rules require prioritized systems to move sooner. The report recommends ML-KEM-768 for key establishment and describes how application guidance and hybrid methods fit into the transition.

  Source · National Institute of Standards and Technology

• Pasqal Finds Three Relaxation Regimes in a 256-Qubit Quantum Magnet

  Pasqal reports three relaxation patterns in a 256-atom Rydberg simulation of a two-dimensional quantum magnet. The study finds a slow-relaxation regime where classical tensor-network calculations lose agreement at late times.

  Source · Pasqal

• IBM Connects Two 120-Qubit Chips With 99% State Transfer

  IBM researchers link two 120-qubit Nighthawk R1 processors with four superconducting coaxial cables and report 99.00% mean fidelity for quantum state transfer. The links also support distant gates and entangled states, though controlled-Z gates across the processors average 94.75% fidelity.

  Source · Meter-scale quantum interconnects between large quantum processors

Also today

• Preprint Proves a Conditional GBS Hiding Result Across Squeezer Counts
• Adelaide Team Reworks SQUID Arrays to Detect Zero Field
• Chicago–IBM Team Maps Backaction with Three Measurements
• Photon Pairs Improve Loss Estimates in Whispering-Gallery Resonators
• Researchers Pre-Train 64-Qubit Circuits with Pauli Propagation
• SkyWater Opens OnRamp for Quantum Startups Seeking Their First Wafers
• PSI Publishes Five AI-Assisted Quantum-Information Results
• Stuttgart-Led FeedbacQ Wins €1.15m for Quantum Control
• Quantum Art Maps Wave Solvers Around the Condition-Number Bottleneck
• Researchers Extend Contextuality Tests to Sequential Quantum Processes
• SEALSQ Clears QS7001’s EAL5+ Technical Evaluation
• Stanford Team Uses Automatic Differentiation to Search for Qubits
• Vardhan and Wang Link Higher-Point OTOCs to a New Chaos Measure
• IonQ Gets $7.5M AFRL Phase 2 for Quantum Networking
• Sloan and Sipe Model Cleaner Squeezed Light With Coupled Rings
• Park, Kwak and Kim’s Transformer Posts an 18.1% Code-Capacity Threshold
• hBN Defects Hold Nuclear-Spin Coherence for Up to 1.44 Milliseconds
• Kun Wang Uses Adaptive Checks to Bound Stabilizer Fidelity
• Antwerp Team Reads Carbon-Nanotube Spins at Room Temperature
• Fujitsu, NII Researchers Add Symmetry Checks to VQA Testing
• Paper Reports Sub-10⁻⁵ Bounds for Optical Bell Resources

The paper of the day

• Multimode continuous-variable quantum key distribution with CMOS-compatible photonic-electronic integration

Every issue

1. Sunday 1 November 2026 — Luthra and Owens Demonstrate QLDPC Surgery on Quantinuum H2-2
2. Saturday 31 October 2026 — IDEMIA Wins First EMVCo Certification for PQC Payment Cards
3. Friday 30 October 2026 — One Transmon Connects Two Superconducting Waveguides
4. Thursday 29 October 2026 — Researchers Demonstrate a Single-Molecule Spin–Photon Interface
5. Wednesday 28 October 2026 — USTC Researchers Demonstrate Four-Way Multiplexed Quantum Gates
6. Tuesday 27 October 2026 — IBM Team Entangles Logical Qubits on Nighthawk Processor
7. Monday 26 October 2026 — Intel Agrees to Acquire Classiq for Full-Stack Quantum Computing
8. Sunday 25 October 2026 — Treasury Proposes Wider Controls on Quantum Investment
9. Saturday 24 October 2026 — Treasury Proposes Wider Controls on Quantum Investment
10. Friday 23 October 2026 — Single-Ion Error Correction Extends Qubit Lifetime 12.9-Fold
11. Thursday 22 October 2026 — Oxford Stores Remote Ion Entanglement in Calcium for 10 Seconds