In the global race to build bigger and better quantum computers, researchers have taken a step forward. A new machine called Helios is radically different from other quantum computers.

Quantum computers harness the power of quantum mechanics, the laws that govern physics at atomic and subatomic scales. Among various designs for such machines, Helios is a trapped-ion quantum computer, which means it uses charged atoms suspended in free space using electromagnetic fields.

It operates using 98 qubits—the units of information that a quantum computer uses to process data. This number of qubits makes it the largest trapped-ion quantum computer built so far. Quantinuum, the company behind the device, is based in Cambridge, U.K., and Broomfield, Colorado. It demonstrated earlier machines operating on 32 qubits in 2023 and 56 qubits in 2025.