Quantum computer: IBM announces a new milestone

Quantum computer IBM

IBM announces a new milestone in quantum computing. With a 27 qubit system, the company has, according to its own information, succeeded for the first time in achieving a quantum volume of 64. IBM’s previous record was 32.

Indicates how powerful a quantum computer is. The length and complexity of quantum circuits is measured, which in turn are the building blocks of quantum applications.

What is the current status of quantum computing

IBM had reached the previous milestone in January. The increase of the Quantum Volume to 64 should have enabled a number of new software and hardware techniques, which were integrated into an existing system of the IBM Q Network.

The optimizations mainly concern the hardware that performs quantum volume circuits. They should be able to be transferred to all IBM quantum computers. In general, IBM is making the improvements with an upcoming version of its IBM Cloud Software Services as well as for the cross-platform SDK Qiskit.

Did Google really achieve quantum supremacy

However, IBM is not the first company to achieve a quantum volume of 64. First, Honeywell claimed to operate the world’s most powerful quantum computer - a title the company now has to share with IBM.

In one point, however, Honeywell actually seems to be ahead of IBM. While IBM achieves a quantum volume of 64 with 27 qubits, Honeywell’s system has only 6 qubits.

In the past four years, IBM made a total of 28 quantum computers available in its IBM Cloud. Eight of these systems offer a quantum volume of 32.