Artificial spin ices are frustrated spin systems that can be engineered, in which fine tuning of geometry and topology has allowed the design and characterization of exotic emergent phenomena at the constituent level. Here, we report a realization of spin ice in a lattice of superconducting qubits. Unlike conventional artificial spin ice, our system is disordered by both quantum and thermal fluctuations. The ground state is classically described by the ice rule, and we achieved control over a fragile degeneracy point, leading to a Coulomb phase. The ability to pin individual spins allows us to demonstrate Gauss’s law for emergent effective monopoles in two dimensions. The demonstrated qubit control lays the groundwork for potential future study of topologically protected artificial quantum spin liquids.

人工自旋冰是可以设计的受挫自旋系统，其中几何形状和拓扑结构的微调允许在成分水平上设计和表征奇异的新兴现象。在这里，我们报告了超导量子比特晶格中自旋冰的实现。与传统的人工自旋冰不同，我们的系统受到量子和热波动的影响。基态经典地由冰规则描述，我们实现了对脆弱简并点的控制，导致库仑阶段。固定单个自旋的能力使我们能够证明高斯定律在二维中出现的有效单极子。所展示的量子位控制为未来对受拓扑保护的人工量子自旋液体的潜在研究奠定了基础。