The achievement in question is the preparation of the neutral atoms, which realize qubits, on this grid. Controlling the placement of such a large number of individual atoms with just light is a somewhat recent breakthrough that is now maturing.

Addressing the atoms and letting them interact is an entirely different beast, but the prerequisite of placement is just as important.

To the practicing statisticians out there: Is BLUE at all relevant in the field? Even if you can formulate your data/problem as a linear regression, wouldn’t maximum likelihood estimation still be the preferred method in most scenarios? Edit: Of course Bayesian analysis is of equal relevance here!