Isaac Chuang, a professor of electrical engineering and physics at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) known as a "pioneer of quantum computing," stressed that "the key challenge for commercializing quantum computers is designing systems that can control errors."
Chuang made the remarks about the future of quantum computers during a keynote speech at "Quantum Korea 2026," a festival for quantum science and technology research and industry hosted by the Ministry of Science and ICT (MSIT) at the Dongdaemun Design Plaza (DDP) in Dongdaemun-gu, Seoul, on Tuesday.
He is a world-renowned scholar who experimentally demonstrated the feasibility of early quantum computers using nuclear magnetic resonance (NMR) in the late 1990s. In 1998, he implemented a quantum algorithm on a two-qubit NMR system, leading the early development of quantum computing.
In his presentation, titled "Quantum Engineering: A Systems Challenge," Chuang said, "To build a good quantum computer, we must implement a system with reliability, parallelism, and programmability, debuggability and predictability." This means that beyond simply building individual quantum devices with excellent performance, designing an overall system that can stably connect and control multiple components is important. "Various quantum devices have been developed so far, but there is still a lack of an overall blueprint for what architecture is needed to combine them into a single, complete quantum computer," he assessed.
Chuang compared the development of quantum computing to the growth of the semiconductor industry in the past. Semiconductors, too, did not lead directly to today's computers immediately after the invention of the transistor, a key component. Only after decades of advances in manufacturing and design technologies to integrate numerous transistors onto a single chip and operate them stably did practical computers become possible. The same is true for quantum computers, he explained. Simply increasing the number of qubits is not enough. Systems engineering that controls errors occurring during computation, quickly processes multiple operations in parallel, and allows researchers and developers to easily program and debug must also be in place before practical use can come closer.
The key here is "quantum error correction (QEC)" technology and a "fault-tolerant" architecture. This means building an error correction system that takes into account the characteristics of qubits, which easily produce errors even with minute changes in the external environment, and designing the system so that overall computations continue without interruption even when partial errors occur. "It is the same principle as how humans, though composed of numerous defective cells, still move stably," Chuang said. "In particular, I believe Korea, which has strengths in the field of microelectronics, can make a major contribution to technological innovation going forward."
Kim Myung-sik, a chair professor of physics at Imperial College London (ICL) in the U.K., who also delivered a keynote speech, likewise assessed that "quantum error correction technology has been advancing rapidly recently, and quantum algorithms are being efficiently improved." He said, "As errors decrease, the performance of quantum computers will gradually get closer to a stage where they can solve real industrial problems such as new drug development, semiconductors, and eco-friendly chemistry."
