IBM Research announced today that for the first time ever it is making quantum computing
available to members of the public, who can access and run experiments on IBM’s quantum
processor.
IBM scientists have built a quantum processor that users can access through a first-of-a-kind
quantum computing platform delivered via the IBM Cloud onto any desktop or mobile device.
IBM believes quantum computing is the future of computing and has the potential to solve
certain problems that are impossible to solve on today’s supercomputers.
The cloud-enabled quantum computing platform, called IBM Quantum Experience, will allow
users to run algorithms and experiments on IBM’s quantum processor, work with the individual
quantum bits (qubits), and explore tutorials and simulations around what might be possible
with quantum computing.
The quantum processor is composed of five superconducting qubits and is housed at the
IBM T.J. Watson Research Center in New York. The five-qubit processor represents the latest
advancement in IBM’s quantum architecture that can scale to larger quantum systems.
It is the leading approach towards building a universal quantum computer.
A universal quantum computer can be programmed to perform any computing task and will be
exponentially faster than classical computers for a number of important applications for
science and business.
A universal quantum computer does not exist today, but IBM envisions medium-sized quantum
processors of 50-100 qubits to be possible in the next decade. With a quantum computer
built of just 50 qubits, none of today’s TOP500 supercomputers could successfully emulate
it, reflecting the tremendous potential of this technology. The community of quantum
computer scientists and theorists is working to harness this power, and applications in
optimization and chemistry will likely be the first to demonstrate quantum speed-up.
With Moore’s Law running out of steam, quantum computing will be among the technologies that
could usher in a new era of innovation across industries. This leap forward in computing
could lead to the discovery of new pharmaceutical drugs and completely safeguard cloud computing
systems. It could also unlock new facets of artificial intelligence , develop new materials
science to transform industries, and search large volumes of big data.
Quantum information is very fragile and needs to be protected from any errors that can result
from heat and electromagnetic radiation. Signals are sent in and out of a cryogenic dilution
refrigerator to measure operations on the quantum processor.
The IBM team has made a number of robust engineering advances both at the device level and in the
electronic controls to give IBM Quantum Experience users unprecedented and reliably high-quality
performance in this five-qubit processor.
Coupled with software expertise from the IBM Research ecosystem, the team has built a dynamic
user interface on the IBM Cloud platform that allows users to easily connect to the quantum
hardware via the cloud. The team sees the introduction to the public of this complete
quantum computing framework as just the start of a new user community, which embraces the
quantum world and how it works.
In the future, users will have the opportunity to contribute and review their results in
the community hosted on the IBM Quantum Experience and IBM scientists will be directly engaged
to offer more research and insights on new advances. IBM plans to add more qubits and
different processor arrangements to the IBM Quantum Experience over time, so users can
expand their experiments and help uncover new applications for the technology.
We live in a world where classical physics
defines our experiences and our intuition, and ultimately how we process information.
However, nature at the atomic level is governed by a different set of rules known as quantum
mechanics. It is beyond the reach of classical computers to solve problems that exist in
nature in which quantum mechanics plays a role, for example, understanding how molecules
behave.
To overcome this, in 1981, Richard Feynman proposed to build computers based on the laws
of quantum mechanics. Over three decades later, IBM is helping to make this a reality.
Quantum computing works fundamentally differently from today’s computers. A classical computer
makes use of bits to process information, where each bit represents either a one or
a zero. In contrast, a qubit can represent a one, a zero, or both at once, which is known
as superposition. This property along with other quantum effects enable quantum computers
to perform certain calculations vastly faster than is possible with classical computers.
Most of today’s quantum computing research in academia and industry is focused on building
a universal quantum computer. The major challenges include creating qubits of high quality and
packaging them together in a scalable way, so they can perform complex calculations in
a controllable way.
IBM employs superconducting qubits that are made with superconducting metals on a silicon
chip and can be designed and manufactured using standard silicon fabrication techniques.
Last year, IBM scientists demonstrated critical breakthroughs to detect quantum errors by
combining superconducting qubits in latticed arrangements, and whose quantum circuit design
is the only physical architecture that can scale to larger dimensions.
Now, IBM scientists have achieved a further advance by combining five qubits in the lattice
architecture, which demonstrates a key operation known as a parity measurement – the basis
of many quantum error correction protocols. The road towards universal quantum computing
hinges upon the achievement of quantum error correction, and the IBM team has taken another
important step down this challenging path.
There has been tremendous progress and interest in the field of quantum of computing in recent
years. By giving users access to the IBM Quantum Experience, it will help businesses and organizations
begin to understand the technology’s potential, for universities to grow their teaching programs
in quantum computing and related subjects, and for students to become aware of promising
new career paths.