IBM expands quantum data center to advance algorithm discovery
IBM has completed the expansion of its Quantum Data Center in Poughkeepsie, New York, which operates the highest number of available utility-scale quantum computers at a single location in the world. These systems are a part of the more than a dozen quantum computers offered to global clients via the IBM cloud.
To advance its mission of bringing useful quantum computing to the world, IBM has heavily invested in deploying advanced quantum hardware architectures. First introduced late last year, the IBM Quantum Heron processor has now been deployed in the global Quantum Data Center in Poughkeepsie.
Now available via the cloud, the Heron-based system offers up to a 16-fold improvement in performance and a 25-fold increase in speed over previous IBM quantum computers as they were measured two years ago. In addition to the two IBM Heron-based computers now available, the additional systems within the Quantum Data Center in Poughkeepsie are now all capable of operating at the level of utility-scale — the point at which quantum computers can run quantum circuits more accurately than classical computers simulating them. In turn, this opens the possibility to explore new computational territories for global users who are pushing forward the discovery of new quantum algorithms that will unlock quantum advantage.
Users are now tapping the improved performance capabilities of IBM Heron and utility-scale systems to build quantum algorithms for their industries with Qiskit, IBM’s quantum software stack, which has been built to simplify programming quantum computers.
“Since IBM made the first quantum computer available on the cloud in 2016, we have broken barriers across quantum hardware and software to build our largest and highest-performing fleet of globally accessible quantum systems,” said Jay Gambetta, Vice President at IBM Quantum. “Our quantum data center in Poughkeepsie is the epicenter of these efforts, with more organizations around the world using our systems here in the Hudson Valley to explore industry-relevant problems on real quantum hardware. As we continue to expand our quantum computers in Poughkeepsie and globally, we will work with our network of more than 250 organizations to accelerate the pace of discovery in quantum computing.”
Recently, IBM published evidence that Qiskit is the leading and most performant quantum software. These breakthroughs are now enabling the emergence of a global ecosystem of quantum software and services, including offerings in the Qiskit Functions Catalog from startups such as Algorithmiq, Q-CTRL, and Qedma to abstract away the complexity of managing the performance of quantum systems; as well as tools from QunaSys and Q-CTRL to help users more easily explore chemistry and optimization problems. These tools are designed to make it easier to build and run utility-scale quantum algorithms that could open the doorway to useful quantum computing.
IBM plans to continue to upgrade and grow its Quantum Data Center in Poughkeepsie as it progresses along its Quantum Development Roadmap to extend the complexity and size of quantum workloads that users can run. The Poughkeepsie data center will continue to serve as a global hub for IBM’s Quantum Network as the company extends its worldwide fleet of systems, including the second IBM Quantum Data Center which will soon open in Ehningen, Germany.