I have a few things to plug so I guess this needs to be a thread. First: new paper! What if instead of designing quantum software with H's in boxs and of weird things, what if you just play whack-a-mole with a managable set of variables. Turns out it works! scirate.com/arxiv/2605.2...

It's 10 years since IBM kicked off the quantum cloud revolution. It ruined my ability to care about anything that I couldn't just go off and run. And long may it continue to do so!

Trailer for our concerts at Oxford's Quantum Centenary with "the Kazakh Mozart", virtuoso musician and composer Rakhat-Bi Abdyssagin. youtu.be/4e_Gg-BZwo0

Devastated that I didn’t make the cut James! :’(

Two great papers on the arXiv today! One has a title echoing that of Kitaev's "Fault-tolerant quantum computation by anyons" almost 30 years ago. Finally Anasuya Lyons and @benbrown.bsky.social shown how to make it work from encoding to decoding. arxiv.org/abs/2602.11258

We've studied iterative strategies for finding ground states We use the ground state of an easy Hamiltonian to `warm start' finding the ground states for some harder Hamiltonians We derive gradient guarantees that (as for adiabatic methods) depend on the gap and a few other natural properties 🧵👇

Did you know you can simulate quantum states with Pauli and Majorana propagation? In short: High-temperature states are provably and practically sparse, and we can use imaginary time evolution to get there starting from the infinite-temperature state. scirate.com/arxiv/2602.0...

How do we figure out the circuit required to prepare a given state, and what's the best circuit? With help from MPS, these guys get it down to logarithmic depth. arxiv.org/abs/2602.02698

Spin qubits have finally reached the point where superconducting qubits were 10 years ago! arxiv.org/abs/2601.23267

I have 1024 followers! Nobody else follow me now. I like powers of 2.

Logical qubits encoded in the fusion space of non-Abelian anyons in a generalized surface code. Not the most efficient way to build a quantum computer, but definitely the coolest! Quantinuum and co show how it's done on one of their H2 devices. arxiv.org/abs/2601.20956

Yesterday I did two things: * Wrote a self-indulgent blog post reflecting on the last 10 years in which I went crazy and started doing quantum games. * Held a surface code in my hand. Here I share both with you, the denizens of blue sky open.substack.com/pub/mothquan...

Today we get the computer scientists' view on the transition into fault-tolerance. There will indeed be a whole lot of classical computing involved in getting early fault-tolerance running, and the better it is, the more quantum we can use. arxiv.org/abs/2601.20247

Always nice to see that quantum foundations have survived the wave of capitalism that has swept through quantum. Today Hausmann and Renner from ETH show that quantum states are more than just a few probability distributions in a trenchcoat. arxiv.org/abs/2601.18872

I got out of the habit of posting half-baked thoughts about papers when Twitter died, But I think I should bring it back! This paper combines error mitigation inside QEC to cancel leading logical errors and effectively giving a distance boost. arxiv.org/abs/2601.18384

"We are a group of quantum scientists who oppose the ongoing militarization of our societies and the use of quantum research for military purposes." disarmquantum.com Manifesto: arxiv.org/abs/2601.14282 Here's just one example: "Quantum technology for military applications" doi.org/10.1140/epjq...

What does early FTQC mean? It seems to be an increasingly popular term, but usage seems to split into two camps. One is FTQC but early. So you have logical qubits with a decent distance, magic state production to support logical non-Cliffords. It's just early because you don't have a lot of it.

Something a little different. Some cartoonists put out a call for comics about local ICE experiences. This one happened a few months ago so it's a little older than current events, but it's a story that I never stopped thinking about. #ICEoutcomics

Is Q2B more Q than it was, or did I just become too B?

I think about this tweet a lot

🎮 𝗖𝗮𝗻𝗮𝗱𝗮’𝘀 𝗤𝘂𝗮𝗻𝘁𝘂𝗺 𝗔𝗿𝗰𝗮𝗱𝗲 is live! Built by our 2024 micrograntees, Ella Meyer & Timothy King, it lets students explore quantum through games. Join the 𝗤𝘂𝗮𝗻𝘁𝘂𝗺 𝗔𝗿𝗰𝗮𝗱𝗲 𝗚𝗮𝗺𝗲 𝗝𝗮𝗺 for grades 6-12: buff.ly/J5Yw5Mq

That's me. I did a thing.

Anyone in Geneva for Swiss Quantum Week? I'm around today and tomorrow if anyone wants to catch up.

Today I'll be speaking at QTech 25 in Hungary: a collection of four quantum conferences in a trenchcoat. Since I'll speak about our game whose level generation runs on-demand on a real QPU, we'll be turning the live QPU generation on this afternoon. Check it out! www.roblox.com/games/941695...

Makes me think if No Man's Sky launched today in the same way it did in 2016 people would accuse it of being AI slop. Generative AI and (most) Procedural Content Generation are not the same thing. (I should make a video about this...)

Tenure track assistant prof job up for grabs in Basel. It's quantum computing theory, based in computer science, and part of the NCCR SPIN. Whoever gets this job will probably have to collaborate with me. Whether you see that as a pro or con is up to you. jobs.unibas.ch/offene-stell...

This weekend is the global quantum game jam! Sign up and hack together a game over the weekend. Or just tune in to the talks on Twitch. www.quantumgamejam.org

MOTH’s João Ferreira will present 'Space Moths' at Quantum Game Jam 2025 - the first Roblox MMOG with levels generated on-demand by quantum computers. More on MOTH:  mothquantum.com Event info:  quantumgamejam.org #mothquantum #quantumgamejam #Roblox #SpaceMoths

New paper today! This time a collaboration between MOTH and DESY, as well as artist Roman Lipski. We use quantum circuits to do image manipulation effects, embedded in a digital paint tool. It's all free and open source. A perfect basis for your next quantum hackathon! scirate.com/arxiv/2509.0...

Gamescom 2025 marked a milestone for us: the launch of Space Moths, the first massively multiplayer game powered on-demand by a quantum computer. Thank you to everyone who joined us, and to our partners Onward Studios, IBM Quantum, IQM, and VTT. → www.roblox.com/games/941695...

I recently published the LaTeX notes I took in three amazing classes this semester: - Computational quantum physics (Prof. @gppcarleo.bsky.social) - Quantum information theory (Prof. @qzoeholmes.bsky.social) - Sublinear algorithms for big data analysis (Prof. Michael Kapralov) Link below👇

What better to do on Sunday morning than a little gaming? If you want to play a game with levels generated on-demand by a quantum computer, then you are in luck. Since it is #gamescom2025, we are doing just that! But you can also play it at home in your pajamas www.roblox.com/games/941695...

First gameplay from Space Moths — an MMOG demo powered by quantum computing. See it at Gamescom 2025.  #Gamescom2025 #mothquantum #MMO #QuantumComputing #onwardstudios

New work just published journals.aps.org/prl/abstract... I was sat on this result for a couple of years but as you can see in the acknowledgements sometimes I need to be told three times to get things done (and sometimes I need to be asked more than three times, sorry @kenbrownquantum.bsky.social)

New paper out on the arXiv today scirate.com/arxiv/2508.0... A short review of the kinds of methods used in procedural generation of content for games, and how fault-tolerant quantum algorithms could be used to enhance them. Daniel will also present this soon at the IEEE Conference on Games.

Just put out a blog post, written with my colleagues Rakhat-Bi Abdyssagin and Alex Alani. We talk about the generative system used to create levels in our game, but also about how we can also use it for remixing the music too. mothquantum.substack.com/p/quantum-mu...

At Gamescom 2025, MOTH and Onward Studios present Space Moths, a quantum-powered MMO demo with dynamically generated levels using on-demand quantum computing and machine learning. Read more here: substack.com/inbox/post/1... #mothquantum #MMO #Gamescom2025 #QuantumComputing #onwardstudios

Looking forward to going to the world's biggest games trade show and launching a new game with quantum-powered level generation!

#booksky #books #kindleunlimited

Has no-one ever made a Stim backend for Qiskit, to make stabilizer simulation faster. It seems like such an easy win for making a well-used tool!

MOTH is heading to #Gamescom2025! We’re debuting the first multiplayer game served on-demand by a QPU. Catch us at Hall 10.2 | Stand F052g (hosted by MiTale) and explore the future of persistent, quantum-powered gameplay. Schedule a meeting on Gamescom Biz or swing by! #QuantumGaming #GameDev

My daughter's primary school had a graduation ceremony recently, with all the leavers giving a speech. Many of them opened with a variation on the same line. One that stood out to me because it didn't make much sense. So I asked Chat GPT to write a speech. Sure enough, it started with the same line

Made a new friend during a walk in the woods today

Interesting new paper today about combining surface codes with non-Abelian qudit versions of surface codes to get non-Clifford gates. arxiv.org/abs/2505.18265

New paper out today! We apply quantum reservoir computing to the task of learning and generating levels of Super Mario Bros, and analyze what exactly it is about the generated levels that we like the look of. Then, like any 10 year-old, we end up on Roblox. arxiv.org/abs/2505.13287

I'm glad I snuck in before the cutoff. bsiegelwax.substack.com/p/the-dungeo...

I swear this is the last podcast featuring me for a while. You are going to have to find someone else to fall asleep to physicsworld.com/a/quantum-co...

Great to see an end-to-end, error corrected algorithm. Obviously there will be challenges to scale everything up, but just seeing all the pieces working well together is great progress.

Espresso Macchiato was robbed! This is my hot #Eurovision take of the day.