On Monday, International Business Machines (IBM) announced a new quantum computing initiative called IBM Q. Through this project, the company will bring to the world the first commercial solutions for business and science in the field.
The announcement represents the next step of the way towards mainstream quantum computers, a technology that could drastically improve our livelihoods using new discoveries currently out of reach for traditional systems.
Apart from making the first universal quantum computer commercially available in the next few years, the Big Blue is also opening up the IBM Quantum Experience to developers with the release of a new API and SDK in the coming months.
IBM Q will offer 50 qubits of power to select clients
IBM Q aims at delivering up to 50 qubits of computing power to select partners and customers for them to tackle the most data-heavy problems they have and potentially revolutionize entire areas of their industries.
Specialists consider it the magic number for quantum computers to unlock their massive potential, a potential that even the brightest minds have a hard time imagining.
Scientists working on the technology have trouble making qubits stable due to their unique nature. Different from bits that store information as zeros or ones and travel through electrical transistors, qubits are versatile and interact with each other.
It is precisely because of these two properties, superposition, and entanglement that qubits and quantum computers have a significantly higher calculation power than traditional systems.
Like mainframes in the dawn of the age of equipment, these quantum platforms will first be available as tools for the science and business fields. These two areas have clients with the most amount of data and the biggest urgencies to tackle today and tomorrow’s problems.
IBM is currently working on quantum tech along with industry leaders such as Samsung, Canon, Hitachi, Honda, JSR, and more. These could be some of the first clients to harness the power of a universal quantum machine in the next few years.
IBM’s Quantum Experience gets better with new tools
The Big Blue also announced a big enhancement for its 5-qubit online quantum computer: the IBM Quantum Experience is now capable of performing 20-qubit simulations on its platform.
Also, the company announced a new open API for developers to create interfaces that bridge current systems with the advanced power of the Quantum Experience and future machines.
IBM also said it would release a software developer kit (SDK) before the first half of the year ended so programmers could start working on simple applications and software to exploit the potential of the open system.
Source: IBM
