YORKTOWN HEIGHTS, N.Y., Nov.
10, 2017 /PRNewswire/ -- IBM (NYSE: IBM) announced today two
significant quantum processor upgrades for its IBM Q early-access
commercial systems. These upgrades represent rapid advances in
quantum hardware as IBM continues to drive progress across the
entire quantum computing technology stack, with focus on systems,
software, applications and enablement.
- The first IBM Q systems available online to clients will have a
20 qubit processor, featuring improvements in superconducting qubit
design, connectivity and packaging. Coherence times (the amount of
time available to perform quantum computations) lead the field with
an average value of 90 microseconds, and allow high-fidelity
quantum operations.
- IBM has also successfully built and measured an operational
prototype 50 qubit processor with similar performance metrics. This
new processor expands upon the 20 qubit architecture and will be
made available in the next generation IBM Q systems.
Clients will have online access to the computing power of the
first IBM Q systems by the end of 2017, with a series of planned
upgrades during 2018. IBM is focused on making available advanced,
scalable universal quantum computing systems to clients to explore
practical applications. The latest hardware advances are a result
of three generations of development since IBM first launched a
working quantum computer online for anyone to freely access in
May 2016. Within 18 months, IBM has
brought online a 5 and 16 qubit system for public access through
the IBM Q experience and developed the world's most advanced
public quantum computing ecosystem.
"We are, and always have been, focused on building technology
with the potential to create value for our clients and the world,"
said Dario Gil, vice president of AI
and IBM Q, IBM Research. "The ability to reliably operate several
working quantum systems and putting them online was not possible
just a few years ago. Now, we can scale IBM processors up to 50
qubits due to tremendous feats of science and engineering. These
latest advances show that we are quickly making quantum systems and
tools available that could offer an advantage for tackling problems
outside the realm of classical machines."
Over the next year, IBM Q scientists will continue to work to
improve its devices including the quality of qubits, circuit
connectivity, and error rates of operations to increase the depth
for running quantum algorithms. For example, within six months, the
IBM team was able to extend the coherence times for the 20 qubit
processor to be twice that of the publicly available 5 and 16 qubit
systems on the IBM Q experience.
In addition to building working systems, IBM continues to grow
its robust quantum computing ecosystem, including open-source
software tools, applications for near-term systems, and educational
and enablement materials for the quantum community. Through the IBM
Q experience, over 60,000 users have run over 1.7M quantum
experiments and generated over 35 third-party research
publications. Users have registered from over 1500 universities,
300 high schools, and 300 private institutions worldwide, many of
whom are accessing the IBM Q experience as part of their formal
education. This form of open access and open research is critical
for accelerated learning and implementation of quantum
computing.
"I use the IBM Q experience and QISKit as an integral part of my
classroom teaching on quantum computing, and I cannot emphasize
enough how important it is. In prior years, the course was
interesting theoretically, but felt like it described some far off
future," said Andrew Houck,
professor of electrical engineering, Princeton
University. "Thanks to this incredible resource that IBM
offers, I have students run actual quantum algorithms on a real
quantum computer as part of their assignments! This drives home the
point that this is a real technology, not just a pipe dream.
What once seemed like an impossible future is now something they
can use from their dorm rooms. Now, our enrollments are
skyrocketing, drawing excitement from top students from a very wide
range of disciplines."
To augment this ecosystem of quantum researchers and application
development, IBM rolled out earlier this year its QISKit
(www.qiskit.org) project, an open-source software developer kit to
program and run quantum computers. IBM Q scientists have now
expanded QISKit to enable users to create quantum computing
programs and execute them on one of IBM's real quantum processors
or quantum simulators available online. Recent additions to QISKit
also include new functionality and visualization tools for studying
the state of the quantum system, integration of QISKit with the IBM
Data Science Experience, a compiler that maps desired experiments
onto the available hardware, and worked examples of quantum
applications.
"Being able to work on IBM's quantum hardware and have access
through an open source platform like QISKit has been crucial in
helping us to understand what algorithms--and real-world use
cases--might be viable to run on near-term processors," said
Matt Johnson, CEO, QC Ware.
"Simulators don't currently capture the nuances of the actual
quantum hardware platforms, and nothing is more convincing for a
proof-of-concept than results obtained from an actual quantum
processor."
Quantum computing promises to be able to solve certain problems
– such as chemical simulations and types of optimization – that
will forever be beyond the practical reach of classical machines.
In a recent Nature paper, the IBM Q team pioneered a new way
to look at chemistry problems using quantum hardware that could one
day transform the way new drugs and materials are discovered. A
Jupyter notebook that can be used to repeat the experiments that
led to this quantum chemistry breakthrough is available in the
QISKit tutorials. Similar tutorials are also provided that detail
implementation of optimization problems such as MaxCut and
Traveling Salesman on IBM's quantum hardware.
This ground-breaking work demonstrates it is possible to solve
interesting problems using near term devices and that it will be
possible to find a quantum advantage over classical computers. IBM
has made significant strides tackling problems on small scale
universal quantum computing systems. Improvements to error
mitigation and to the quality of qubits are our focus for making
quantum computing systems useful for practical applications in the
near future. As well, IBM has industrial partners exploring
practical quantum applications through the IBM Research Frontiers
Institute, a consortium that develops and shares a portfolio of
ground-breaking computing technologies and evaluates their business
implications. Founding members include Samsung, JSR, Honda, Hitachi
Metals, Canon, and Nagase.
These quantum advances are being presented today at the IEEE
Industry Summit on the Future Of Computing as part of IEEE
Rebooting Computing Week.
IBM Q is an industry-first initiative to build commercially
available universal quantum computing systems for business and
science applications. For more information about IBM's quantum
computing efforts, please visit www.ibm.com/ibmq.
Media Contacts
Christine
Vu
IBM Media Relations – Research
vuch@us.ibm.com
914-945-2755
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SOURCE IBM