IBM says it is in a close race with Google to reach quantum advantage within months, according to Scott Crowder, IBM’s vice president for quantum adoption. He added that a few other groups, such as the Chinese Academy of Sciences and Quantinuum, are also close behind.
“In the next 12 months that will happen,” Crowder said. “It’s going to happen running on a quantum computer of probably over a hundred qubits. We think it will be running on one of our systems. There’s only a very small number of people who have built a quantum computer that could possibly do that. Us, Google, the Chinese Academy of Sciences and possibly Quantinuum. It’s probably neck-and-neck between Google and us on who’s going to land it first.”
Crowder rejected claims from D-Wave that it had already shown quantum advantage. He also warned that some rival approaches could be copied on cheaper classical hardware. “There may be ways to do the same thing on an FPGA implementation or another classical implementation that could do it much cheaper than what they’re proposing,” Crowder said.
He said a first win would matter mostly to researchers. “If it’s an industry person, they don’t give a crap about that,” Crowder said. Real interest will follow when quantum methods show clear business value, such as finding better bond portfolios for banks that could make large sums of money. “We certainly do have systems that are dedicated for one client that can do that today. It’s going to be those questions that five years from now people are going to care about,” Crowder said.
IBM has improved how long its systems can run useful work. When it first put five-qubit machines on the cloud about nine years ago, they could only do around 25 operations before noise spoiled results. Today, IBM’s cloud service can handle roughly 5,000 to 15,000 operations before errors dominate. Crowder said that change puts current quantum devices well beyond what a classical supercomputer can match for some tasks.
IBM uses superconducting qubits in its machines and is building parts in New York. “Superconducting qubits are one of the newer modalities,” Crowder said. “It’s been around for a little under 20 years, not as long as photonics or trapped ions. We believe it has the right balance of speed and quality and programmability. You need all three of those to build a quantum computer. Superconducting qubits are about a thousand times raw operation speed faster than trapped ions, which are probably the number-two modality right now.”
He noted the need for long-range links between qubits and the packaging work that requires. “There’s some complexity in terms of having some long-range connections between your qubits,” Crowder said. IBM is using its semiconductor know-how and a 300-millimeter fab in Albany to help make devices. “We’re able to leverage that and leverage our involvement up in Albany to have access to a 300-millimeter fab to do this. That has had very significant advantages for us, which are going to get more significant going forward.”
IBM plans staged steps toward a fault-tolerant machine and a full system called Starling by 2029. Nearer term, IBM expects chips and modules to show advantage. “It’s going to be really important for that short-term provable quantum advantage milestone,” Crowder said.
He described the technical pieces needed for a modular, large machine. “You need a logical processing unit that injects your actual instructions into your quantum memory,” Crowder notes. “You need something called a magic-state factory to create non-Clifford gates so you have a universal gate set. If you’re going to build it in a modular way, which I think any system is going to have to do, you need an adapter to allow you to connect the packages together and have entanglement across those packages.”
IBM already works with industry and research customers on chemistry and materials problems. The company runs systems in several countries and places machines in partner data centers. Crowder said IBM manages hardware updates and finds the current model of IBM-owned and run systems easiest for users, though the company may offer other options later.
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