
Abstract: Two-level systems defined in the spin states of electrons or holes in semiconductor quantum dots may serve as the building blocks of a future quantum processor. The potential advantages of this type of architecture are well known: (1) Two-qubit gates can be executed through a local spin-spin exchange interaction that can be tuned to zero in the idle state with exponential accuracy, (2) the small size of the qubits may allow for millions of qubits on the same chip, and (3) it may be possible to use industrial fabrication methods to integrate classical control electronics together with the qubits in a large-scale processor. There are still several hurdles to fully realizing these advantages, and I will discuss several of them in this talk from a theoretical perspective, including alternative ways to characterize and measure charge noise, improved methods for spin-to-charge conversion in qubit readout, and novel ideas for long-range coupling and entanglement distribution using classical (coherent-state) microwave pulses that take advantage of a longitudinal qubit-cavity coupling
