Experimental measurements of non-local magic on the Italian superconducting quantum computer “Partenope"

Magic is the non-classical resource that measures how much a quantum state deviates from a stabilizer state¹. A system that only uses stabilizer operations has access to entanglement, but no magic; local operations allow only for magic, but no entanglement. Notably, both situations can be simulated on a classical computer. The onset of quantum advantage then resides in the interplay between coexisting magic and entanglement. The quantum information community just recently recognized the non-local magic² as a tool for measuring such interplay, but it is not yet routinely experimentally addressed. Here, we fill the gap with the first experimental measurement of non-local magic on a NISQ superconducting QPU (sQPU), the core of the Italian Quantum Computing center “Partenope”^3,4. This work gives the chance not only to report on the progress of Partenope^5-6, which already allowed running proof-of-concept algorithms⁷, but also to discuss the role played by gate/readout errors in local and non-local magic generation/degradation, and a way to use magic as a novel benchmarking tool for sQPUs.

¹M. Howard et al., PRL 118(9), 090501,2017.

²D. Qian et al., PRA 111, 052443,2025.

³H.G. Ahmad et al., under submission.

⁴S.F.E. Oliviero, et al., Npj Quantum Information 8(1), 1–8,2022.

⁵H. G. Ahmad et al., Adv Quantum Technol. 7, 2300400, 2024.

⁶V. Stasino et al., J Supercond Nov Magn 38, 129, 2025.

⁷H.G. Ahmad et al., under preparation.