Imagine playing the tiniest game of checkers, where the pieces are atoms and lasers move them around a tiny board.
That’s not science fiction—it’s a new experiment from a team of physicists at the University of Colorado Boulder and quantum computing company Quantinuum.
In their new study, published in Physical Review Letters, the researchers designed and tested a simple but powerful “quantum game” on a real quantum computer.
This unusual game helps scientists explore how quantum computers might work in the future—and what they might be useful for.
Unlike regular computers, which use bits that are either a 0 or 1, quantum computers use qubits, which can be 0, 1, or both at the same time.
This weird behavior, rooted in quantum physics, gives quantum computers the potential to solve problems that would take regular computers years or centuries. But qubits are tricky—they’re hard to control, and small disturbances like heat or vibrations can mess things up.
To work around this, the research team created a setup where qubits could stay stable even when there’s interference.
They used Quantinuum’s System Model H1, a small but powerful quantum computer that uses lasers to move and control 20 tiny atoms (called ytterbium ions).
These ions were arranged in a two-dimensional grid, forming what’s called a “topological phase”—a kind of organized knot-like structure where all the qubits are connected in a special pattern.
The scientists then played a mathematical game using these entangled qubits. In the game, players try to fill in a grid with zeros and ones to match a certain hidden pattern, without being able to talk to each other.
Under normal rules, it’s almost impossible to win every time. But with help from quantum entanglement—the strange connection between particles—players can “cheat” in a way that’s only possible in the quantum world. This is called “quantum pseudotelepathy.”
The researchers used the quantum computer to simulate this kind of game. They found that the topologically entangled qubits allowed them to win the game about 95% of the time—even when they added interference or increased the number of players.
While this quantum game won’t cure diseases or solve climate change, it shows that current quantum computers are already capable of doing things classical computers can’t. It’s also a sign that future quantum devices could get bigger and more powerful—without falling apart from too much error.
As lead researcher Rahul Nandkishore put it, this experiment is a proof of concept: quantum computers can do something special, and they’re getting better at it.
