Methods, systems, and apparatus for individual qubit excitation control with a global excitation drive. In one aspect, a method includes accessing a quantum system that comprises a plurality of qubits; a plurality of qubit frequency control lines, each qubit frequency control line corresponding to an individual qubit and controlling the frequency of the qubit; a driveline; a plurality of couplers, each coupler coupling a corresponding qubit to the driveline so that a plurality of qubits are coupled to the driveline; determining one or more qubits that require a rotation operation; for each qubit requiring a rotation operation: tuning the qubit frequency to the corresponding driveline frequency of the rotation operation; performing the rotation operation using a microwave pulse on the excitation drive; and tuning the qubit away from the driveline frequency of the rotation operation.