A new kind of computing

We experience the benefits of classical computing every day. However, there are challenges that today’s systems will never be able to solve. For problems above a certain size and complexity, we don’t have enough computational power on Earth to face them.

To stand a chance at solving some of these problems, we need a new kind of computing. Universal quantum computers hold the quantum mechanical phenomena(fact) of superposition and involvement to create states that scale expand with number of qubits, or quantum bits.

Learn more about one of the first, most promising application areas of quantum computing:

Quantum computing fundamentals

All computing systems depend on a fundamental ability to store and manipulate information. Current computers manipulate individual bits, which store information as binary 0 and 1 states. Quantum computers leverage (hold) quantum mechanical phenomena to manipulate information. To do this, they rely on quantum bits, or qubits.

Here, learn about the quantum properties leveraged by qubits, how they’re used to compute, and how quantum systems scale.

What does it take to create a fault-tolerant quantum system? To increase the computational power of a quantum computer, improvements are needed along two dimensions.

One is qubit count; the more qubits you have, the more states can in principle be manipulated and stored. The other is low error rates, which are needed to manipulate qubit states accurately and perform sequential operations that provide answers, not noise.

A useful metric for understanding quantum capability is quantum volume. It measures the relationship between number and quality of qubits, circuit connectivity, and error rates of operations. Developing systems with larger quantum volume will lead to discovering the first instances of applications where quantum computers can offer a computational advantage for solving real problems.

What’s to be done about quantum

Unlike traditional computers which use a stream of electrical or optical pulses called bits, representing 1s or 0s, quantum computers use qubits, which are typically subatomic particles such as electrons or photons. At the quantum level, qubits can represent thousands of possible combinations of 1 and 0—a quality called a superposition of states that allow them to solve problems by simultaneously considering numerous possibilities.  A connected group of qubits can provide far more processing power than the same number of binary bits.

Generating and managing qubits is an engineering challenge. IBM, for example, uses superconducting circuits cooled to temperatures colder than deep space.

That exhausts my technical understanding of the process but I hope we can agree that quantum computing has huge implications for the future of enterprise computing.

initiative of quantum computing

IBM Q is an industry first initiative to build universal quantum computers for business, engineering and science. This effort includes advancing the entire quantum computing technology stack and exploring applications to make quantum broadly usable and accessible.

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Partner with IBM Q

IBM Q Network is a global community of visionary companies, academic institutions, startups and national research labs working together to advance quantum computing.