IBM wants to offer commercial quantum computers with 50 qubits within a few years

IBM has announced its ‘Q’ program. It wants to build quantum computers with fifty qubits within a few years, which will be commercially available via its IBM Cloud. In addition, it is expanding its current quantum computer with a new API.

IBM writes that the computers must solve problems that cannot be tackled with classical systems, for example in the field of quantum states in a molecule. The company therefore wants to increase the number of qubits to fifty. IBM is developing this ‘universal quantum computer’ together with Samsung, Canon and Honda, among others. Access to the system should initially be possible for a number of partners for an unknown price.

In a second announcement, the company writes that it has developed a new API for its so-called Quantum Experience. Introduced in 2016, this system allows users to run algorithms over the internet on their PC or mobile device on the five-qubit quantum processor. This service has now been used by 40,000 users to conduct a total of 275,000 experiments, IBM reports. The new api allows users to perform operations in batches and allows the use of the Python language.

In addition to the API, the company is making an SDK available, which should be released in the first half of this year. This allows users to build different applications. Although the current system uses five qubits, IBM has developed a simulator that can simulate up to twenty qubits. The aim of this is to already think of possible applications.

IBM’s QLab at the TJ Watson Research Center, New York