Imagine a game of checkers—but not the one you play on a wooden board with plastic discs. Picture instead a microscopic battlefield where the game pieces are atoms, the board is a grid of invisible laser beams, and every move follows the bizarre rules of quantum mechanics. Now imagine that this game isn’t just for fun—it’s a groundbreaking experiment in understanding the future of quantum computing.
That’s the scene set by a recent study from a team of physicists at the University of Colorado Boulder and the quantum technology company Quantinuum. In their new paper, published in Physical Review Letters, the researchers explore the frontier of quantum computing by playing a theoretical “game” on a very real and very advanced quantum computer. The implications are both technical and tantalizing: their success could pave the way for machines that outperform today’s most powerful supercomputers, especially when it comes to solving problems we can barely begin to imagine.
Quantum Games: More Than Thought Experiments
At the heart of the experiment is a concept known as a quantum game. These are not games in the traditional sense, but highly structured mathematical challenges that physicists use to probe the strange behaviors of particles at the smallest scales. They go back decades, to when physicist David Mermin proposed a strange scenario: what if two players, isolated from one another, could win a game with the help of something called “quantum pseudotelepathy”?
Sounds like science fiction? It’s not.
These games rely on entanglement, a quantum phenomenon where particles—like electrons or ions—become linked in such a way that measuring one immediately influences the other, no matter how far apart they are. Entanglement is famously strange, but it has also proven real, replicable, and extremely useful in quantum research.
In Mermin’s original version, players tried to fill in a grid of zeros and ones based on given prompts, like a cosmic version of Sudoku. The trick: no communication was allowed once the game began. Without entanglement, it’s provably impossible to win every time. But with it? Players could coordinate their moves through a mysterious quantum connection, seemingly defying logic.
Now, researchers from CU Boulder and Quantinuum have turned this theoretical idea into a physical experiment—on a machine powered by lasers and atomic ions.
Meet the Quantum Computer: Quantinuum’s H1-1
The team’s experiment unfolded on one of the most advanced quantum computers in the world: Quantinuum’s System Model H1-1. Unlike your laptop or phone, which crunches information using bits that are either zero or one, quantum computers use qubits. These can be zero, one, or both at the same time—thanks to the principle of superposition.
The H1-1 isn’t just a marvel of modern engineering—it’s a gateway into a new world of computation. Built around a palm-sized chip and powered by lasers, it manipulates individual atoms of ytterbium suspended in space. These ions serve as qubits, and they’re arranged into a 2D grid that researchers can control with incredible precision.
By configuring the qubits into a special arrangement known as a topological phase of matter, the team created a system that wasn’t just entangled pair-by-pair—it was entangled across the entire grid, forming a kind of quantum knotwork.
“We have order that’s associated with this global pattern of entanglement,” said physicist Rahul Nandkishore, one of the study’s co-authors. “If you make a local disturbance, it shouldn’t mess it up.”
Playing the Game—with Atoms
So how does this game actually work on a quantum computer?
First, the team programmed the machine with the rules of the game—a set of operations and measurements that reflect the logic of Mermin’s thought experiment. They then “played” by selecting and measuring certain qubits within the grid, effectively simulating the choices players would make in the abstract version of the game.
The results were stunning: even under real-world conditions—where noise, temperature, and other factors can interfere—the quantum system won the game with an accuracy of about 95%. That’s far above what any classical strategy would allow. It’s not quite perfect, but it’s enough to suggest that the experiment achieved genuine quantum pseudotelepathy.
The experiment didn’t stop there. The team added more complexity, introducing hypothetical players and disturbances to see how the system held up. Even then, it remained remarkably robust—proving that this topological approach to entanglement isn’t just a novelty. It’s potentially a path to making quantum computers more stable and scalable.
Why This Matters
To the uninitiated, a quantum game might seem like an intellectual parlor trick. But to researchers, it’s a critical proof of concept. Building a functional quantum computer is like trying to balance a pencil on its point—every tiny environmental factor threatens to knock it over. Entanglement can be easily disrupted. Qubits can be corrupted. Scaling from a handful of qubits to hundreds or thousands is a monumental challenge.
But this study suggests a way forward. By using topological patterns of entanglement, where the “information” is spread out over the entire system rather than isolated in pairs, researchers might build quantum computers that are less fragile and more powerful.
“This study is proof of principle that there is something that quantum devices can already do that outperforms the best available classical strategy,” said Nandkishore, “and in a way that’s robust and scalable.”
In other words, quantum computers aren’t just science fiction anymore. They’re starting to win games that regular computers can’t even play.
The Future: Medicine, Materials, and More
The potential applications are vast. Quantum computers could one day simulate molecules in ways that would revolutionize drug discovery, allowing scientists to predict how new compounds will behave in the human body before they’re even synthesized. They could model complex materials at the atomic level, helping us build better batteries, stronger alloys, or even room-temperature superconductors.
They might also reveal deeper truths about the universe—about how particles interact, why certain symmetries exist in nature, or how time and space themselves operate at quantum scales.
But before that happens, researchers need to understand how to make these machines reliable. That’s what this quantum checkers game is really about: finding the pathways to stability, reliability, and scalability. And it’s working.
Beyond Bits and Bytes
Quantum games may never make it to your PlayStation, but they are redefining what computation means. They’re showing us that reality is weirder—and more wondrous—than we ever imagined. And that by understanding the quirks of the quantum world, we might build machines that aren’t just faster or smarter, but fundamentally different from anything that came before.
It’s like watching the first sparks of a new kind of fire—one that could someday light up science, medicine, and technology in ways we’re only beginning to grasp.
For now, it starts with a small grid of ions, a few well-placed lasers, and a game that breaks all the rules. And that’s just the beginning.
Reference: Oliver Hart et al, Playing Nonlocal Games across a Topological Phase Transition on a Quantum Computer, Physical Review Letters (2025). DOI: 10.1103/PhysRevLett.134.130602. On arXiv: DOI: 10.48550/arxiv.2403.04829