Anthropic’s Claude automates laser frequency lock recovery for QuEra quantum computers Claude built a laser relock controller for QuEra; 695 of 700 tests succeeded. On August 27, developer of quantum computers QuEra Computing said that Anthropic’s AI agent Claude developed and tested on a separate test stand a program to automatically restore a laser’s operating frequency. In a control series of 700 tests across seven types of failures, the controller it created successfully returned the setup to the target state 695 times. The system never reported a successful recovery when one had not actually occurred. QuEra attributed the five unsuccessful attempts to the state of the experimental setup rather than a software error. QuEra’s quantum computers use neutral atoms as qubits. Nearly all operations to control atomic qubits and read out their state are performed via interactions of the atoms with laser light. Temperature, vibrations, and pressure changes can break the laser’s frequency lock. In such cases, quantum operations begin to fail, and restoring more complex faults requires a specialist’s intervention. According to QuEra, an experienced operator typically needs five to ten minutes to return the laser to its operating frequency. The company had previously automated simple disruptions, but rare and more complex scenarios still required manual intervention. Claude rewrote the recovery logic For the experiment, QuEra used the Model Hardware Standard (MHS), a specification for interfacing AI agents with physical equipment. Its development began as a joint project by Anthropic and the HHMI Janelia research center. MHS gives an agent standardized access to equipment readings and controls while preserving engineer-defined constraints, hardware interlocks, and an emergency stop. The technology is currently in a limited research preview, but Anthropic plans to open-source the standard. QuEra connected Claude through MHS to a separate test stand with precision equipment costing about $700,000.