Methods, systems, and apparatus for operating a system of qubits. In one aspect, a method includes operating a first qubit from a first plurality of qubits at a first qubit frequency from a first qubit frequency region, and operating a second qubit from the first plurality of qubits at a second qubit frequency from a second first qubit frequency region, the second qubit frequency and the second first qubit frequency region being different to the first qubit frequency and the first qubit frequency region, respectively, wherein the second qubit is diagonal to the first qubit in a two-dimensional grid of qubits.