Abstract Quantum information platforms made great progress in the control of many-body entanglement and the implementation of quantum error correction, but it remains a challenge to realize both in the same setup. Here, we propose a mixture of two ultracold atomic species as a platform for universal quantum computation with long-range entangling gates, while providing a natural candidate for quantum error-correction. In this proposed setup, one atomic species realizes localized collective spins of tunable length, which form the fundamental unit of information. The second atomic species yields phononic excitations, which are used to entangle collective spins. Finally, we discuss a finite-dimensional version of the Gottesman–Kitaev–Preskill code to protect quantum information encoded in the collective spins, opening up the possibility to universal fault-tolerant quantum computation in ultracold atom systems.