The disclosure describes various techniques to control of small angle Mølmer-Sørensen (MS) gates and to handle asymmetric errors. A technique is described for handling asymmetric errors in quantum information processing (QIP) systems. An exemplary method includes implementing a quantum circuit in the QIP system that has first and second qubit lines, with a first qubit state having a greater measurement error than a second qubit state; swapping the roles of the first and second qubit states at a quantum circuit level in response to at least one of the first qubit line and the second qubit line being expected to be at the first qubit state at a measurement; and enabling a quantum simulation using the quantum circuit with the first and second qubit states reassigned in at least one of the first qubit line and the second qubit line after the swapping of the respective roles.