Optical tweezer arrays 1,2 have transformed atomic and molecular physics, now forming the backbone for a range of leading experiments in quantum computing 3–8, simulation 1,9–12, and metrology 13–15. Typical experiments trap tens to hundreds of atomic qubits, and recently systems with around one thousand atoms were realized without defining qubits or demonstrating coherent control 16–18. However, scaling to thousands of atomic qubits with long coherence times, low-loss, and high-fidelity imaging is an outstanding challenge and critical for progress in quantum science, particularly towards quantum error correction 19,20. Here, we experimentally realize an array of optical tweezers trapping over 6,100 neutral atoms in around 12,000 sites, simultaneously surpassing state-of-the-art performance for several metrics that underpin the success of the platform. Specifically, while scaling to such a large number of atoms, we demonstrate a coherence time of 12.6(1) seconds, a record for hyperfine qubits in an optical tweezer array. We show room-temperature trapping lifetimes of  ~ 23 minutes, enabling record-high imaging survival of 99.98952(1)% with an imaging fidelity of over 99.99%. We present a plan for zone-based quantum computing 5,21 and demonstrate necessary coherence-preserving qubit transport and pick-up/drop-off operations on large spatial scales, characterized through interleaved randomized benchmarking. Our results, along with recent developments 8,22–24, indicate that universal quantum computing and quantum error correction with thousands to tens of thousands of physical qubits could be a near-term prospect.