The company has in the past only built one system based on neutral atom qubits that operated using only 100 qubits.

The error rate for individual qubit operations is high enough that it won't be possible to run an algorithm that relies on the total qubit count without failing due to an error. But it does back up the company's claims that its technology can scale rapidly and provides a testbed for work on quantum error correction. And, for smaller algorithms, the company says it'll run multiple instances in parallel to boost the chance of returning the right answer.

Atom Computing uses the system internally and plans to open it up for public use next year. The system has moved from a 10x10 grid to a 35x35 grid, bringing the potential sites for atoms up to 1,225.

So far, testing has taken place with up to 1,180 atoms present, making it the biggest machine that anyone has publicly acknowledged. The qubits are housed in a 12x5 foot box containing the lasers and optics, the vacuum system, a potentially dead or alive cat, and a bit of unused space.

Atom CEO Rob Hayes said: "There's a lot of air inside that box." It does not, however, contain the computer hardware that controls the system and its operations. By contrast, the grid of atoms it's used to create is only about 100 microns per side, so it won't strain the hardware to keep increasing the qubit count.