We are close to finishing the development of a 50 qubit quantum computer chip

Says Noam Zakai, leader of IBM's quantum computing activity in Europe, in an interview during the CES exhibition held in Las Vegas

We are close to finishing the development of a 50 qubit quantum computer chip. Says Noam Zakai, leader of IBM's quantum computing activities in Europe, in an interview with the CHIPORTAL website during the CES exhibition held last week in Las Vegas.
Zakhai's current role is to transfer technologies from all 12 IBM laboratories around the world into the company's products, and technologies that did not reach IBM products are offered to other companies through licensing agreements. "According to IBM's financial reports, last year the volume of business for the commercialization of technologies reached about 2 billion dollars, mainly the granting of rights to use and license patents and technologies. We do not allow any technology to lie on the shelf and gather dust. The role of people like me, of whom there are relatively few around the world, is find a use for them. Many technologies have a window of time when the technology is already mature and they find someone to provide its licenses to put it in their products."

"About a year ago, I raised my hand and said that the field of quantum computing is interesting. Of course, in the worlds of research, it has been helping for quite a few years, but a year ago IBM Q Network was created and there and then I took the lead of the commercialization efforts of the technology in Europe." "It is not yet possible to enter a store and purchase a quantum computer, the only way is to go through the channel of licensing and access to the system at IBM facilities commercially.

"IBM was the first to open the quantum computer to the world through the cloud in 2016. We started with 5 qubits, the computer was upgraded to 16 qubits and for about two years we have more than a hundred thousand registered users - when it is free and open to everyone. From all seven continents, including Antarctica, there is an article about An Antarctic expedition that used a computer. More than seven million experiments were run on our systems Published, and that's really what we're asking people - use for free but if you write an article give us credit for the project known as the IBM Quantum Experience.
It's a wonderful story. When we started the service, we didn't know if the world was ready for quantum computing. The statistics unequivocally prove that there is great interest in technology," says Zakai.

In December 2017, as mentioned, the IBM Q Network was announced. The network consists of Fortune 500 companies, research bodies and universities. So far, 42 entities have joined it, including the JPMorgan Chase bank, the Daimler car company, Samsung, universities such as MIT, and the last entity to join - and I am personally responsible for this transaction - is the particle accelerator in Geneva. IBM will partner with Sarn to harness the power of quantum computing to analyze particle collisions. Unlike the experimental network, which is still operating and free, the entities using the new network are required to pay for access. The network already requires IBM contracts with the partners, and in return it provides access to the latest systems - as mentioned currently these are the fourth generation computers of 20 qubits, when we recently announced a 50 qubit chip that is in a prototype. I estimate that the system will be ready in the first quarter of 2019.

"During the CES conference we announced another step - not only the use of computers in IBM facilities But actually selling a complete Konti computer - IBM Q System One . This is a system packed in one glass cabinet and includes all the components of a quantum computer, including the mechanical part that looks like a chandelier, the cabinets from which the chips are activated using microwaves, a complete system. This is no ordinary announcement but something that will change the rules of the game. Admittedly, it will still be impossible to innovate in the types of algorithms that can be run on the new computer. At the Lawrence Livermore labs, IBM supercomputers are used to run a simulation of a 56-qubit quantum computer. Once we get to computers with 57 qubits we will be able to do something that simply cannot be done on a classical computer."

"In order to increase the number of qubits, it is not enough just to add qubits in a row to the existing ones. The factor that hinders the development of quantum computing is that the qubits themselves do not provide an accurate result 100 percent of the time, there is still noise. It is enough that the processor is 99.9% accurate for each qubit, so that the noise will multiply by the number of qubits. The main research effort to improve quantum is in New York in Yorktown Heights, And part of it is done in laboratories in Zurich and in Haifa, the Israeli laboratory is working to reduce the noise at the software level."

"The call is in Israel. There are budgets or at least there were announcements that there are budgets for the development of quantum computing, but the situation on the ground is that there are too few users, I want to increase awareness. The universities teach quantum computing and use the open computer Quantum Experience. It's a shame we'll be left behind. Even if One day Israel will build a computer or not, there is no obstacle for universities to train students in quantum computing for free The glove. Anyone who wants to use the commercial quantum computer is welcome to contact me, it's a shame that Israel will be left behind.
Unfortunately, even though there are no costs at all, it is difficult to transfer this to universities in Israel. Students can use a 15 or 16 qubit quantum computer for free for their projects."

More of the topic in Hayadan:

• Israel will invest NIS 100 million to establish an innovative research fund on quantum science and technologies
• "There is still a need to investigate how error correction can be performed before a universal quantum computer can be built"
• The history of the field of quantum information science