GPT-5.6 Sol runs quantum computing experiments autonomously
How GPT‑5.6 Sol helps run quantum computing experiments
MIT graduate student Beatriz Yankelevich used OpenAI's GPT-5.6 Sol, harnessed to Codex, to automate routine measurements on superconducting qubits. The AI agent successfully calibrated a six-qubit chip, saving hours of manual work and allowing experiments to run overnight. While it struggled with noisy signals, the results show AI can handle well-defined lab workflows, freeing researchers for higher-level tasks.
I can have agents running measurements for many hours overnight or while I’m working in the cleanroom.
- throwaway63467
I had qubit bring up and calibration fully automated with Python in 2011 including full spectrum measurements, lifetime characterization, Rabi/Ramsey measurements, calibration of single qubit gates and two qubit swap gates and full quantum process tomography, so not sure if AI is really needed there, curve fitting and some data logging is enough for this. Even had a nice LabView like GUI but with PyQT, it was quite nice. Still of course cool, I guess today I would just let Codex loose on some experiment goals but in the end my ability to produce results was mostly limited by the chip itself and the qubit lifetimes and theres no magic trick AI can apply to make these go up by a factor of 10. Still would’ve saved me a lot of time for routine programming tasks I imagine and that seems to be the main takeaway of the article. I guess name dropping quantum computing makes this sound cooler but in principle it’s just automation that you can apply anywhere, nothing quantum computing specific here.
- lompad
Relevant paper [0] "Replication of Quantum Factorisation Records with an
8-bit Home Computer, an Abacus, and a Dog"
- Iuz
Every time I open one of the multiple daily posts about Anthropic or OpenAI and read the comments, I get this weird feeling.
Astroturfing is obviously common in political spaces, whether to normalize certain views, manufacture consensus, or shift public opinion. It seems to me that HN would be a prime target for tech companies to do the same thing, and lately I can't shake the impression that there's a lot of it going on here.
This site might be dying.
- Oarch
Something about the look of quantum computers takes me right back to the ENIAC.
- sidcool
OpenAI is on a quite offensive lately with pathbreaking discoveries.
- the__alchemist
I am wondering about using ML/AI for quantum chemistry; ORCA is S-tier software and docs, but is very slow!
- dr_dshiv
Guess I need to update https://quantumvibecoding.org
- varispeed
Is it a version that has not yet been nerfed? Since yesterday I noticed Sol and Astra have become much dumber.