According to Caixin News Agency, International Business Machines Corporation (IBM) announced this week that it plans to launch a practical large-scale fault-tolerant quantum computer by 2029 and elaborated on the company's roadmap to achieve this goal. IBM has stated that it plans to have a larger scale quantum computing system by 2029. The company will build a quantum computer called "Starling" in its data center in Poughkeepsie, New York, and says it will have approximately 200 logical qubits. It is expected that the computing power will reach 20000 times that of existing quantum computers, supporting users to explore complex quantum states far beyond the limitations of current devices. Quantum bits are the fundamental unit of quantum computing, and 200 quantum bits are enough to begin demonstrating advantages over classical computers.
Jay Gambetta, Vice President of Quantum Business at IBM, claims that IBM's confidence in its 2029 roadmap stems from two recent advances: further progress in a new method of reducing errors, known as qLDPC error correcting codes, and the use of traditional computing techniques for real-time identification and correction of errors.
Gartner analyst Chirag Dekate commented that it is currently unclear how IBM's breakthrough will "translate into tangible business value," and the transformative potential of fault-tolerant quantum computers is still under speculation. IBM's plan also did not provide detailed information on the commercial availability of its new quantum computer, as well as the specific date for the release of its error correction system.
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