CAS Cold Atom Technology, a Wuhan company known in Chinese as Zhongke Kuyuan, unveiled a neutral-atom quantum computer called Hanyuan-2 at the 2026 Mobile Cloud Conference in Suzhou on May 7. The machine traps 200 rubidium atoms in two separate arrays, which the company described as “both independent and complete neutral atom qubit arrays,” according to the Global Times. A neutral-atom quantum computer uses individual uncharged atoms, held in place by focused laser beams, as qubits.
Science and Technology Daily, a state-owned newspaper, reported the launch the same day and called Hanyuan-2 the world’s first dual-core neutral-atom quantum computer in its headline. According to the newspaper, Ge Guiguo, a senior solutions expert at the company, described the machine as the first in the world to move a quantum processor from a single-core to a dual-core architecture.
The company reported a two-qubit gate fidelity of 99% for Hanyuan-2, below the 99.9% that Tang Biao, its chairman, called the basis of error-corrected quantum computing. Tang told China Business Journal that 99.9% is the target for the company’s next generation of products for error-corrected computing. Gate fidelity is a measure of how accurately a machine performs a logic operation on its qubits, where 100% means no error.
What the company disclosed
China Business Journal reported on May 8 that, according to data the company disclosed, Hanyuan-2 combines 100 rubidium-87 atoms and 100 rubidium-85 atoms into 200 physical qubits. A physical qubit is one hardware element that stores quantum information, in this case a single atom.
China Business Journal also reported a coherence time above 300 milliseconds and a single-qubit gate fidelity of 99.9%, alongside the 99% two-qubit figure. Coherence time is how long a qubit keeps its quantum state. Hubei Daily, a provincial state newspaper, reported on May 7 that the two-qubit gate fidelity had risen from 0.9 to 0.99 and the coherence time from about 10 milliseconds to 300 milliseconds.
Tang told Science and Technology Daily that the qubit lifetime had been raised to 100 seconds, a term the newspaper did not define, and that the machine’s core indicators had reached internationally advanced levels. In neutral-atom machines, the time an atom stays trapped is distinct from its coherence time. He also said the machine draws less than 7 kilowatts and needs only a small laser cooling system, without complex cryogenic refrigeration. Superconducting quantum computers, by contrast, operate inside refrigerators cooled close to absolute zero.
What was not reported
None of the newspapers that reported the launch said whether atoms in one array can be entangled with atoms in the other. An entangling operation links the quantum states of two qubits. Quantum processors use such operations to combine qubits in a single calculation.
Neither Science and Technology Daily nor the Global Times cited a paper, a preprint, or an independent test of the machine. Neither reported results from a benchmark or from an algorithm run on Hanyuan-2.
Two arrays, two modes
Science and Technology Daily reported that the two arrays can run in parallel to raise computing efficiency. They can also work in a mode with one main core and one auxiliary core to build what the newspaper called high-stability logical qubits.
A logical qubit is one unit of quantum information spread across several physical qubits, so that errors can be caught and corrected. Science and Technology Daily reported that the two-core design addresses limits on adding qubits and on crosstalk, unwanted interference between neighboring qubits, in single-array machines.
The company’s core team came from the Chinese Academy of Sciences’ Innovation Academy for Precision Measurement Science and Technology, according to Science and Technology Daily. The newspaper described Hanyuan-1, the company’s previous machine, launched in 2024, as China’s first commercial neutral-atom quantum computer. The company plans to deliver Hanyuan-2 to customers within eight months and to launch a 1,000-qubit Hanyuan-3 next year, the Chinese financial news service Cailian Press reported on May 8.
