The silicon microchips of future quantum computers will be packed with millions, if not billions of qubits—the basic units of quantum information—to solve the greatest problems facing humanity. And with millions of qubits needing millions of wires in the microchip circuitry, it was always going to get cramped in there.

But now engineers at UNSW Sydney have made an important step toward solving a long-standing problem about giving their more breathing space—and it all revolves around jellybeans.

Not the kind we rely on for a sugar hit to get us past the 3pm slump. But jellybean quantum dots—elongated areas between qubit pairs that create more space for wiring without interrupting the way the paired qubits interact with each other.

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