IBM Quantum Heron presents IBM's highest quantum computing performance ever, with 133 qubits and an architecture that improves error reduction by five times compared to its predecessor - Eagle
At its annual quantum computing summit in New York, computing giant IBM unveiled the IBM Quantum Heron – the first in a new series of "useful" quantum processors, delivering the highest performance metrics the company has ever recorded. Heron processors include 133 qubits and exhibit the lowest error rate of any IBM quantum processor, a five-fold improvement over the record set by its predecessor, the 127-qubit IBM Quantum Eagle.
IBM also unveiled the IBM Quantum System Two – the company's first modular quantum computer and the cornerstone of its quantum supercomputing architecture. The first System Two began operating at the IBM laboratory in Yorktown Heights, New York and includes three Heron processors and an advanced electronic control infrastructure.
IBM Quantum System Two is the foundation of IBM's next-generation quantum computing system architecture. It combines scalable cryogenic cooling infrastructure, and classic servers with modular control electronics. The new system is the cornerstone of IBM's vision for building supercomputing systems centered on a quantum computer. This architecture combines quantum computing and communication components and classical computing resources, and an intermediate software layer that allows performing tasks that require quantum computing and classical computing resources together.
IBM Quantum System Two, the new Heron processor, and a series of other breakthroughs in quantum hardware, theory and software, allow IBM to extend its roadmap for quantum computing by ten years, until the year 2033, with new goals for a significant improvement in the quality of the various quantum components, in a way that will allow Leverage the potential inherent in quantum computing.
As IBM demonstrated earlier this year with the Eagle processor, IBM Quantum systems can now be used as a scientific tool to investigate applied – and not just theoretical – complex problems in chemistry, physics and materials, and not be satisfied with a classical simulation of the power of quantum mechanics. Since that demonstration, leading researchers, scientists and engineers from leading research laboratories and institutes, academic institutions and quantum computing companies have demonstrated utility-scale applications of quantum computing to confirm the enormous advantage inherent in exploring this uncharted computational territory. IBM is committed to continuing research in the field and has announced that it will make Heron processors available to the scientific and research community through the cloud.
IBM also officially announced Qiskit 1.0 - the open source software for quantum computing widely used in the world, which will help researchers and scientists accelerate the development of quantum computing systems, and Qiskit Patterns - an application that will allow quantum developers to create code easily, and is based on a collection of simple tools for mapping classical problems, "Targuman" For quantum circuits, running these circuits using Qiskit Runtime, and processing the results for use by researchers. In this way, the researchers will be able to build, deploy and implement work processes that combine classical and quantum computing in different environments.