Thank you for visiting nature.com. You are using a browser version with limited support for CSS. To obtain
the best experience, we recommend you use a more up to date browser (or turn off compatibility mode in
Internet Explorer). In the meantime, to ensure continued support, we are displaying the site without styles
and JavaScript.
It is difficult to carry out and verify digital quantum simulations that use many quantum bits. A hybrid device based on a digital classical computer and an analog quantum processor suggests a way forward.
Devices known as universal quantum computers can be programmed to run different algorithms, thereby dispensing with the need to build new quantum computers for different functions. Fully fledged digital quantum simulations on such a device would allow substantial progress to be made in a wide range of disciplines, from quantum chemistry and materials science to fundamental high-energy physics. However, for this approach, it remains difficult to incorporate the many quantum bits (qubits) that are required for complex simulations. By contrast, large-scale analog quantum simulators already exist in today’s laboratories. But, unlike their digital counterparts, these simulators are not programmable in general, and are often considered to be dedicated, single-purpose machines. Now, in a paper in Nature, Kokail et al.1 report a programmable analog quantum simulator that is versatile and has the potential to be scalable.