Efficient learning of quantum noise

Noise is the central obstacle to building large-scale quantum computers. Quantum systems with sufficiently uncorrelated and weak noise could be used to solve computational problems that are intractable with current digital computers. There has been substantial progress towards engineering such systems1–8. However, continued progress depends on the ability to characterize quantum noise reliably and efficiently with high precision9. Here, we describe such a protocol and report its experimental implementation on a 14-qubit superconducting quantum architecture. The method returns an estimate of the effective noise and can detect correlations within arbitrary sets of qubits. We show how to construct a quantum noise correlation matrix allowing the easy visualization of correlations between all pairs of qubits, enabling the discovery of long-range two-qubit correlations in the 14-qubit device that had not previously been detected. Our results are the first implementation of a provably rigorous and comprehensive diagnostic protocol capable of being run on state-of-the-art devices and beyond. These results pave the way for noise metrology in next-generation quantum devices, calibration in the presence of crosstalk, bespoke quantum error-correcting codes10 and customized fault-tolerance protocols11 that can greatly reduce the overhead in a quantum computation. A protocol for the reliable, efficient and precise characterization of quantum noise is reported and implemented in an architecture consisting of 14 superconducting qubits. Correlated noise within arbitrary sets of qubits can be easily detected.