Latest news with #Gambetta
Mint
10-06-2025
- Business
- Mint
IBM has a roadmap to a ‘fault-tolerant' Quantum computer by 2029
International Business Machines said Tuesday it has a plan for building what it calls the world's first large-scale, fault-tolerant quantum computer at its New York data center before the end of the decade. The computer, called IBM Quantum Starling, will be housed in its Poughkeepsie, N.Y., center and have 20,000 times the computational power of today's quantum computers, the tech giant said. 'I feel more comfortable than ever that a fault-tolerant quantum computer will exist before the end of this decade," said Jay Gambetta, IBM's vice president of quantum. 'We are putting error-correction in detail on our roadmap because we believe now we've solved all the scientific challenges." Quantum computers are susceptible to instability, requiring quantum error correction—a technique that identifies and addresses errors in computations—and more broadly, quantum fault-tolerance, the ability to operate even with errors present. Among the companies racing to build a practical quantum computer, from tech giants like Microsoft and Google to quantum companies like D-Wave, Quantinuum and IonQ, IBM isn't the only one that has promised a fault-tolerant computer by 2029. Others have recently made progress in the area of error correction, including Amazon, with its Ocelot quantum computing chip, which it said can reduce quantum errors by up to 90%. Google is also focused on error correction with its Willow chip. Quantum computers store information as quantum bits—otherwise known as qubits—which can exist as a zero and a one at the same time and so are much richer objects than the binary digits that ordinary computers use. That makes them capable of much more powerful types of computations than ordinary computers, and could mean they can help engineer materials at the molecular level, or even crack the defenses used to secure the internet. But one of quantum computing's major problems is that qubits generate errors as they tackle problems. They're fragile, and susceptible to 'noise," essentially small environmental disturbances that can force them out of their quantum state. That's made the quest to build a so-called fault-tolerant quantum computer a priority for tech giants and quantum companies alike. Gambetta said IBM's confidence in its 2029 timeline stems from two recent developments: further advances in a new approach to reducing errors called 'quantum low-density parity check" or qLDPC codes, plus a technique for identifying and correcting errors in real-time using conventional computing. Additionally, quantum computing startup SEEQC is expected to announce a collaboration with IBM this week as part of the U.S. Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency's Quantum Benchmarking Initiative, which is aimed at evaluating quantum companies' ability to achieve utility-scale operation. As part of the partnership, the two companies will work to shrink and consolidate IBM's racks of control hardware by transferring some control and readout elements directly onto a chip. SEEQC manufactures its own quantum chips, known as integrated QPUs, in a factory in Elmsford, N.Y. IBM is releasing more detailed plans for its large-scale quantum computer at this point because it hopes to spur developers' interest in creating quantum algorithms—a key part of the software that will run on quantum computers. That's critical to achieving a return on investment for quantum computers, a metric that matters to businesses, Gambetta said. But, at this point, it's not clear how IBM's breakthroughs 'translate into tangible business value," and the transformative potential of fault-tolerant quantum computers is still speculative, said Chirag Dekate, an analyst at IT research and consulting firm Gartner. IBM's plans are also light on details about its new quantum computer's commercial availability, and specific dates for when its error-corrected systems will be released, Dekate said. In response, IBM asserted that it has the most detailed roadmap and plans for commercialization in the industry. 'This is inherently hard to do because quantum innovation has many moving parts," Dekate said. 'The reality in quantum is that we are not yet at the ChatGPT-like moment where the technology, algorithms and impact become visceral and undeniable." At the same time, the comprehensive nature of IBM's plans to build its fault-tolerant quantum computer is worthy of note, said Heather West, an analyst at International Data Corp. IBM's plans should serve as a wake-up call to businesses and the tech community to pay attention to the speed at which quantum computing is advancing, West added. 'When you hear this announcement by IBM, as well as others by other hardware vendors, you realize that this is a real technology, and it's coming to fruition as we speak," she said. Write to Belle Lin at and Isabelle Bousquette at
Al Etihad
10-06-2025
- Business
- Al Etihad
IBM aims for quantum computer in 2029, lays out road map for larger systems
10 June 2025 14:21 SAN FRANCISCO (Reuters) International Business Machines on Tuesday said it plans to have a practical quantum computer by 2029, and it laid out the detailed steps the company will take to get computers tap into quantum mechanics to solve problems that would take classical computers thousands of years or more. But existing quantum computers must dedicate so much of their computing power to fixing errors that they are not, on net, faster than classical which also said it aims to have a much larger system by 2033, plans to build the "Starling" quantum computer at a data center under construction in Poughkeepsie, New York, and said it will have about 200 logical qubits. Qubits are the fundamental unit of quantum computing, and 200 qubits would be enough to start showing advantages over classical is chasing quantum computing alongside other tech giants such as Microsoft, Alphabet's Google and as well as a range of startups that have raised hundreds of millions of dollars in of them are tackling the same basic problem: Qubits are fast but produce a lot of errors. Scientists can use some of a machine's qubits to correct those errors, but need to have enough left over for doing useful changed its approach to that problem in 2019 and says it believes it has landed on a new algorithm that will drastically reduce the number of qubits needed in error an interview, Jay Gambetta, the vice president in charge of IBM's quantum initiative, said the company's researchers took a different tack than they had historically, when they would work out the scientific theory of an error-correction method and then try to build a chip to match that IBM's quantum team looked at which chips were practical to build and then came up with an error-correction approach based on those chips. That has given IBM confidence to build a series of systems in between this year and 2027 that will eventually result in larger systems. "We've answered those science questions. You don't need a miracle now," Gambetta said. "Now you need a grand challenge in engineering. There's no reinvention of tools or anything like that."
Business Insider
28-05-2025
- Business
- Business Insider
CEOs who aren't yet preparing for the quantum revolution are 'already too late,' IBM exec says
Quantum computing will change the tech landscape as much as artificial intelligence has. Execs from IBM, Microsoft, IonQ, PsiQuantum, and D-Wave told BI that corporate leaders should be preparing now. Quantum computing will change the tech landscape as much as artificial intelligence has. Execs from IBM, Microsoft, IonQ, PsiQuantum, and D-Wave told BI that corporate leaders should be preparing now. D-Wave This story is available exclusively to Business Insider subscribers. Become an Insider and start reading now. You'd be hard pressed to find a company out there that's not using some form of AI at this point. In just a few years, tech leaders say the same will be true of quantum computing. "It's equivalent to the exact thing that you're seeing with classical computing and AI, but it's going to happen at a much larger scale," Jay Gambetta, the vice president in charge of IBM's quantum initiative, told Business Insider. Researchers are optimistic about coming breakthroughs in quantum computing, a field that leverages quantum physics and mechanics to solve complex problems faster than is possible using classical computers. Related video When the final engineering problems are solved and the technology scales up, quantum tech promises to revolutionize medicine, data privacy, and more . Industry insiders say it's just a matter of time before quantum computing changes the tech landscape as much as artificial intelligence has, so corporate leaders had better start getting ready. "If you're not paying attention and you're not dedicating people to quantum computing, I think it's probably already too late," Gambetta said. 'Future-proof' computing is hybrid AI and quantum computing are not interchangeable tools — each has its own very different strengths. Artificial intelligence is especially good at searching through existing data to make predictions about future outcomes, and is helpful in areas like image recognition, e-commerce recommendation engines, and fraud detection. Related stories Business Insider tells the innovative stories you want to know Business Insider tells the innovative stories you want to know A utility-scale quantum computer doesn't predict using data from the past, Stratton Sclavos, PsiQuantum's Chief Business Officer, told Business Insider. Instead, it calculates the exact answer from first principles, from scratch, "to solve problems that no conventional computer or AI will ever be able to solve." "If you're currently using or ramping up your use of AI, keep going," Sclavos said. But, he said, corporate leaders should be "preparing now for how quantum computing will transform how your business operates." Aseem Datar, Microsoft's vice president of product innovation, strategic missions, and technologies, told Business Insider that, given the rapid pace of innovation, "it's critical that organizations start exploring, identifying, and building an application road map that sets them up for success in a quantum future." For instance, Microsoft recently released Discovery, an agentic AI platform for scientific research and development built on top of its Azure cloud computing program. Datar said the technology was designed to be as "future-proof" as possible so that when quantum technology advances, it will be readily incorporated into the existing technology, and users "will get the benefits of quantum underneath the platform." While Microsoft Discovery is geared toward the scientific community, Datar said future-looking tech solutions across industries will share similar characteristics. Hybrid computing integration, which combines the strengths of classical computing power with those of quantum systems, is particularly important, he said, so corporate leaders don't have to rip and replace their systems once quantum technology reaches its potential. Murray Thom, D-Wave's vice president of quantum technology evangelism, agreed, telling Business Insider: "Hybrid quantum-classical solutions are what's going to give them the resiliency that they're looking for in their businesses." Thom added that organizations need to be aware of and ready for the speed of change that the tech landscape will undergo as quantum technology scales up, "so that they can take advantage of the technology and not be at a competitive disadvantage if they miss what the newest capabilities are." "When you're evaluating a new technology, you have to keep in mind that there's the information you have about what's possible today, and then there's what I call a cone of uncertainty that projects into the future," Thom said. "You're looking to gain information that allows you to narrow that cone of uncertainty so that you can make better business decisions about what to do today to take advantage of that in the future — and particularly in a way that gives you robustness to those future outcomes." 'The toothpaste is not going back in the tube.' It's not just private industry that's getting ready for the quantum revolution. Tim Kelly, the mayor of Chattanooga, Tennessee, told Business Insider he's investing heavily in his city's ability to lean into a quantum future, with hopes it can become a hot spot for development of the technology. "We intend to try to make the most of it from an economic development perspective," Kelly said. "I think we're right at the leading edge of this, and the toothpaste is not going back in the tube, and so even though it's very early innings yet, this will change the world in a very fundamental way." Other cities, including Chicago, Boston, and Boulder, Colorado, are also investing in quantum research and industrial hubs to ensure they can capitalize on the economic growth the burgeoning industry is expected to usher in. As the quantum snowball keeps rolling downhill for both the public and private sectors, Niccolo de Masi, CEO of IonQ, told Business Insider that early adopters will gain a massive advantage if they start now to identify the best use cases for their industries, developing and optimizing hybrid algorithms ahead of time so they're ready when the first utility-scale quantum computers turn on. Those that don't start now, he said, risk becoming obsolete. "This might sound extreme, but as the joke always goes, CEOs have made plenty of decisions over the past 10,000 years that they've gotten fired for — for making the wrong decision," de Masi said. "I think CEOs are going to get fired if they're not up on the quantum revolution in a lot of industries, because they're just going to be so far behind."
