Quantum leap: IBM plans to scale beyond 1,000 qubits in 2027 with Nighthawk r3 processor
Nighthawk r3 is slated to arrive in 2027, when Big Blue plans to link two of the quantum processors into a single system with more than 1,000 qubits.
Key points
- The changes greatly expand the scope of its next-generation Nighthawk general-use processors by adding a version with over 500 programmable qubits.
- IBM's Quantum Developer's Conference is being held this week, and the company is using the gathering to provide an update to its roadmap: It is aiming to make error-corrected quantum computers before the decade is out.
- At the same time, it's stepping back a bit on its plan to link multiple Nighthawk processors together, dropping the intended number of linked systems from nine to two.
IBM has unveiled the Nighthawk r3, an upcoming next-gen quantum processor that will feature 520 qubits, as another step towards a planned fault-tolerant quantum system it hopes to launch in 2029.
Its successor, IBM claims, will have more than four times as many qubits and execute 10,000 quantum operations to tackle larger, more complex problems while maintaining the same speed and accuracy.
Additional details
- The total number of qubits planned for next year will remain the same; how the company is getting there, however, will be different.
- IBM said applications increasingly require circuits executing thousands of quantum operations on approximately 100 qubits or more, speeding up collection of the millions or billions of samples needed to perform complex computations.
- Last week, Oak Ridge National Laboratory (ORNL) in the US announced such a system, combining an IBM Quantum System Two with Nighthawk r2 quantum processors and Umbra, powered by AMD 5th Gen Epyc CPUs and Instinct MI355X GPU accelerators.
- Big Blue's current Nighthawk r2 was only made available in September and features 120 quantum bits (qubits) capable of handling circuits using 7,500 operations.
- IBM previously outlined its goal of reaching reliable error correcting territory in 2029 with a quantum processor codenamed Starling.
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