Universal quantum computing holds the promise to fundamentally change today’s information-based society, yet a hardware platform that will provide a clear path to fault-tolerant quantum computing remains elusive. One recently proposed platform involves the use of circuit-bound photons to build cluster states and perform one-way measurement-based quantum computations on arrays of long-coherence-time solid-state spin qubits. Herein, we discuss the challenges that are faced during any practical implementation of this architecture by itemizing the key physical building blocks and the constraints imposed on the spin qubits and the photonic circuit components by the requirements of fault-tolerant performance. These considerations point to silicon as a leading candidate to host such a platform, and a roadmap for developing a silicon photonic circuit-based platform for measurement-based, fault-tolerant universal quantum computing is offered.
