Learning Neural Decoding with Parallelism and Self-Coordination for Quantum Error Correction

Abstract

Fast, reliable decoders are pivotal components for enabling fault-tolerant quantum computation. Neural network decoders like AlphaQubit have demonstrated significant potential, achieving higher accuracy than traditional human-designed decoding algorithms. However, existing implementations of neural network decoders lack the parallelism required to decode the syndrome stream generated by a superconducting logical qubit in real time. Moreover, integrating AlphaQubit with sliding window-based parallel decoding schemes presents non-trivial challenges: AlphaQubit is trained solely to output a single bit corresponding to the global logical correction for an entire memory experiment, rather than local physical corrections that can be easily integrated. We address this issue by training a recurrent, transformer-based neural network specifically tailored for sliding-window decoding. While our network still outputs a single bit per window, we derive training labels from a consistent set of local corrections and train on various types of decoding windows simultaneously. This approach enables the network to self-coordinate across neighboring windows, facilitating high-accuracy parallel decoding of arbitrarily long memory experiments. As a result, we resolve the throughput limitation that previously prohibited the application of AlphaQubit-type decoders in fault-tolerant quantum computation.