IBM hits new computing milestone in race to achieve ‘quantum advantage’

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RALEIGH – IBM has hit a new milestone on its quantum computing road map, achieving the company’s highest Quantum Volume to date.

Combining a series of new software and hardware techniques to improve overall performance, IBM said it has upgraded one of its newest 27-qubit client-deployed systems to achieve a Quantum Volume 64.

“We are always finding new ways to push the limits of our systems so that we can run larger, more complex quantum circuits and more quickly achieve a Quantum Advantage,” said Jay Gambetta, IBM Fellow and Vice President, IBM Quantum, in a statement.

For those not in the know, quantum computing is the use of quantum phenomena such as superposition and entanglement to perform computation.

One of IBM’s quantum research operations includes N.C. State.

In order to achieve a Quantum Advantage, the point where certain information processing tasks can be performed more efficiently or cost effectively on a quantum computer, versus a classical one, it requires improved quantum circuits.

Quantum Volume measures the length and complexity of circuits. The higher the Quantum Volume, the more powerful the quantum computer.

IBM said it focused on a new set of techniques and improvements that used knowledge of the hardware to optimally run the Quantum Volume circuits to achieve its latest milestone.

The company said these techniques will be available in upcoming releases and improvements to the IBM Cloud software services and the cross-platform open source software development kit (SDK) Qiskit.

Just two months ago, Honeywell similarly announced it had a quantum computer running client jobs with a Quantum Volume of 64. Honeywell reached the milestone with just a 6-qubit system, as ZDNet reported.

IBM also is competing with Google in the quantum realm. Significant quantum research is taking place as well at Duke University.

Original article source: WRAL TechWire