February 12, 2026 -- Researchers at QuTech have developed a new chip architecture that could make it easier to test and scale up quantum processors based on semiconductor spin qubits. The platform, called QARPET (Qubit-Array Research Platform for Engineering and Testing) and reported in Nature Electronics, allows hundreds of qubits to be characterized within the same test-chip under the same operating conditions used in quantum computing experiments. "With such a complex, tightly packed quantum chip, things really starts to resemble the traditional semiconductor industry." states researcher Giordano Scappucci.

When viewed under a microscope, the structure of the QARPET chip appears almost woven. Fabrication was in fact a stress test for engineering capabilities. “When I designed the first layouts, I honestly did not expect them to work,” says Alberto Tosato, who did the engineering. “The number of crossing electrodes is extremely high. It pushes the limits of nanofabrication, we saw it as a test that would probably fail. So, seeing the device come alive at millikelvin temperatures, that was a very satisfying moment.”

The device was engineered to tackle a key challenge for quantum technologies: how to efficiently evaluate large numbers of qubits, especially as devices with millions of quantum bits get developed. “Building a large-scale quantum processor is not just a matter of adding more qubits,” says Giordano Scappucci, Associate Professor at TU Delft and lead researcher. “To make progress, we need to understand how qubits perform statistically, how uniform they are, how noisy they are, and how these properties vary across a chip. This really sets QARPET apart.”