QPUs. Quantum algorithms. Crypto and securities markets forecasting. Weather predictions. Data vectoring: Making a programmable superconducting processor.
IBM Sets the Course to Build World's First Large-Scale, Fault-Tolerant Quantum Computer at New IBM Quantum Data Center
newsroom.ibm.com: [Excerpt] YORKTOWN HEIGHTS, N.Y., June 10, 2025/PRNewswire/ -- IBM (NYSE: IBM) unveiled its path to build the world's first large-scale, fault-tolerant quantum computer, setting the stage for practical and scalable quantum computing.
Delivered by 2029, IBM Quantum Starling will be built in a new IBM Quantum Data Center in Poughkeepsie, New York and is expected to perform 20,000 times more operations than today's quantum computers. To represent the computational state of an IBM Starling would require the memory of more than a quindecillion (1048) of the world's most powerful supercomputers. With Starling, users will be able to fully explore the complexity of its quantum states, which are beyond the limited properties able to be accessed by current quantum computers.
spectrum.ieee.org (8/22/24): [Excerpt] Quantum-centric supercomputers will include thousands of error-corrected qubits to unlock the full power of quantum computers. Here’s how we’ll get there.
This Doodle celebrates World Quantum Day, an annual celebration that improves understanding of quantum physics and technology. The date, April 14th, represents the first three digits of Planck’s constant, which describes the relationship between the energy and frequency of a quantum of energy (such as a photon): 4.14×10−15 eV·s
The artwork featured in today’s Doodle shows a thaumatrope, a tool and optical toy that consists of a disk with two different pictures on either side. When spun rapidly, our brains superimpose both images so they appear to combine and form one image. The thaumatrope helps illustrate the concept of quantum superposition: when a particle exists in multiple states at once.
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☑️ #86 Mar 28, 2025
Accenture & EvoNexus Graduate, QuSecure Team in First Successful Multi-Orbit Communications Link Showcasing Post-Quantum Crypto Modernization
evonexus.org: [Excerpt] Companies Usher in New Era in Quantum-Resiliency Advancing from Internet to Interstellar Utilizing the Latest in Space Technologies.
SAN MATEO, CA / March 28, 2023 /QuSecure™, Inc., a leader in post-quantum cybersecurity, today announced that the company, in collaboration with Accenture, has accomplished the first successful multi-orbit data communications test secured with post-quantum cryptography (PQC), which refers to cryptographic methods that are secure against an attack by a quantum computer. This demonstrates that crypto-agility, successfully rotating to a less vulnerable algorithm, is real and possible.
Before this achievement, data from multi-orbit satellites could be collected and potentially broken by classical means and quantum computers with enough power. Recognizing the world’s growing reliance on satellite communications, QuSecure and Accenture teamed to deliver a crypto-agile quantum-resilient channel from earth to a low earth orbit (LEO) satellite. From there, the breakthrough transmission included a switch over from LEO to a geosynchronous orbit (GEO) satellite and back down to earth, as a model for redundancy in the event of a breach, failure or threat to satellites in a single orbit.
qusecure.com (3/28/25): [Excerpt] Accenture & QuSecure Team in First Successful Multi-Orbit Communications Link Showcasing Post-Quantum Cryptography Modernization.
The QuSecure team worked with Accenture to build a fully functional prototype and successfully tested the protocol in an actual multi-orbit communications link. During their tests, QuSecure was able to prove that its post-quantum cryptography protocol could securely transmit data over multiple orbits, offering a major advantage over the single-orbit protocols previously used. This achievement is even more impressive when taking into account the fact that the team had to overcome many technical challenges in order to make such a link work.
Source: QuSecure, Inc.
@BassonBrain (2/2/25): NEWS: @SpaceX's Starlink is quietly preparing to incorporate quantum communication technologies into its systems.
Quantum communication promises unhackable and superfast internet connections!
The technology utilizes quantum mechanics principles like quantum entanglement.
Integration could redefine global connectivity and enhance
Potential impact includes advancements in national security and data encryption standards.
SpaceX has not yet made official announcements, though trials may commence soon.
Industry insiders speculate that this pivot toward quantum internet could further establish Starlink as a leader in next-generation communications, influencing everything from national security frameworks to everyday data encryption standards.
If achieved, the potential ripple effects of a Starlink-enhanced quantum network could redefine how we perceive and interact with digital connectivity across the world.
Source: SM
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☑️ #85 Mar 18, 2025
NVIDIA to Build Accelerated Quantum Computing Research Center
nvidianews.nvidia.com: [Excerpt] New Center in Boston to Advance the Development of Quantum Computing Architectures and Algorithms in Collaboration With Leading Hardware and Software Makers.
Propelling Quantum Innovation
Through the NVAQC, commercial and academic partners will work with NVIDIA to use state-of-the-art NVIDIA GB200 NVL72 rack-scale systems, the most powerful hardware ever deployed for quantum computing applications. This enables complex simulations of quantum systems and the deployment of the low-latency quantum hardware control algorithms essential for quantum error correction. NVIDIA GB200 NVL72 systems will also accelerate the adoption of AI algorithms in quantum computing research.
The NVIDIA Accelerated Quantum Computing (NVAQC) Research Center is a facility dedicated to shortening the timeline to useful quantum computing. The NVAQC integrates partner quantum hardware with state-of-the-art NVIDIA GB200 NVL72 Grace Blackwell Superchips via the NVIDIA DGX™ Quantum architecture. Researchers and developers can orchestrate these quantum-classical systems with the NVIDIA CUDA-Q™ platform to provide the missing tools to solve pressing challenges such as quantum error correction and hybrid application development. The NVAQC is where qubits become large-scale, accelerated quantum supercomputers capable of exploring useful applications. Watch the video below to learn more about accelerated quantum supercomputing.
@NVIDIA (3/18/25): Building The Accelerated Quantum Supercomputer.
In this video, NVIDIA and partners QuEra and Quantinuum dive into the concept of accelerated quantum supercomputing, which brings quantum hardware and #AI supercomputing together to perform useful quantum computations.
blogs.nvidia.com(3/20/25): [Excerpt] Quantum Day at NVIDIA GTC 2025.
Discussing the state of the art in quantum computing, NVIDIA founder and CEO Jensen Huang will share the stage with executives from industry leaders, including:
IONQ 0.00%↑ -- The leader in precision quantum computing, leveraging trapped-ion technology to deliver scalable, high-fidelity systems. IonQ is solving real-world problems today, enabling $AMZN & $MSFT to tackle challenges in logistics, AI & materials science.
NVDA 0.00%↑ -- A cornerstone of quantum innovation, NVIDIA’s CUDA Quantum platform enables developers to simulate quantum algorithms on GPUs, bridging the gap between quantum theory & real-world adoption across industries.
RGTI 0.00%↑ -- Focused on superconducting qubits, Rigetti aims to compete with industry leaders but faces challenges in scalability & reliability. Its Ankaa-3 system shows promise, but the company must resolve critical issues to stay competitive.
QBTS 0.00%↑ -- Specializing in quantum annealing, D-Wave excels at solving optimization problems but lacks the broader capabilities of general-purpose quantum systems. Despite decades in the field, its commercial viability remains limited.
ARQQ 0.00%↑ -- A leader in quantum-safe encryption, Arqit’s QuantumCloud delivers practical solutions for protecting sensitive data from quantum-based threats, making it a cornerstone of cybersecurity innovation.
GOOGL 0.00%↑ -- Google Quantum AI, powered by its Willow processor, is advancing superconducting systems to achieve quantum supremacy & drive breakthroughs in materials simulation & AI optimization.
IBM 0.00%↑ -- Empowering enterprises with accessible quantum systems via its Qiskit platform & cloud-based hardware. IBM is focused on scaling fault-tolerant systems, delivering practical tools today while advancing toward cutting-edge processors like Eagle & Condor.
HON 0.00%↑ -- Leveraging trapped-ion technology, Honeywell delivers unmatched precision for real-world applications in aerospace & logistics. Its partnership with Cambridge Quantum positions it as a leader in enterprise quantum solutions.
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☑️ #83 Mar 3, 2025
Zuchongzhi-3
journals.aps.org (3/3/25): [Abstract] Establishing a New Benchmark in Quantum Computational Advantage with 105-qubit Zuchongzhi 3.0 Processor.
In the relentless pursuit of quantum computational advantage, we present a significant advancement with the development of Zuchongzhi 3.0. This superconducting quantum computer prototype, comprising 105 qubits, achieves high operational fidelities, with single-qubit gates, two-qubit gates, and readout fidelity at 99.90%, 99.62%, and 99.13%, respectively. Our experiments with an 83-qubit, 32-cycle random circuit sampling on the Zuchongzhi 3.0 highlight its superior performance, achieving 1×106 samples in just a few hundred seconds. This task is estimated to be infeasible on the most powerful classical supercomputers, Frontier, which would require approximately 5.9×109 yr to replicate the task. This leap in processing power places the classical simulation cost 6 orders of magnitude beyond Google’s SYC-67 and SYC-70 experiments [Morvan et al., Nature 634, 328 (2024)], firmly establishing a new benchmark in quantum computational advantage. Our work not only advances the frontiers of quantum computing but also lays the groundwork for a new era where quantum processors play an essential role in tackling sophisticated real-world challenges.
A new high-performance quantum processor boasts 105 superconducting qubits and rivals Google’s acclaimed Willow processor.
scitechdaily.com (update; 3/7/25): [Excerpt] Zuchongzhi-3: A Leap in Quantum Performance.
Building upon the 66-qubit Zuchongzhi-2, the USTC research team significantly enhanced key performance metrics to develop Zuchongzhi-3, which features 105 qubits and 182 couplers. The quantum processor achieves a coherence time of 72 μs, a simultaneous single-qubit gate fidelity of 99.90%, a simultaneous two-qubit gate fidelity of 99.62%, and a simultaneous readout fidelity of 99.13%. The extended coherence time provides the necessary duration for performing more complex operations and computations.
To evaluate its capabilities, the team conducted an 83-qubit, 32-layer random circuit sampling task on the system. The results demonstrated a computational speed that outpaces the world’s most powerful supercomputer by 15 orders of magnitude and surpasses Google’s latest quantum computing results by six orders of magnitude, establishing the strongest quantum computational advantage in a superconducting system to date
Amazon Web Services announces a new quantum computing chip
aboutamazon.com: [Excerpt] New 'Ocelot' chip uses scalable architecture for reducing error correction by up to 90% and accelerating the development of real-world quantum computing applications.
AWS used a novel design for Ocelot’s architecture, building error correction in from the ground up and using the ‘cat qubit’. Cat qubits–named after the famous Schrödinger's cat thought experiment–intrinsically suppress certain forms of errors, reducing the resources required for quantum error correction. Through this new approach with Ocelot, AWS researchers have, for the first time, combined cat qubit technology and additional quantum error correction components onto a microchip that can be manufactured in a scalable fashion using processes borrowed from the microelectronics industry.
Majorana 1, the first quantum chip powered by a Topological Core based on a revolutionary new class of materials developed by Microsoft
news.microsoft.com: [Excerpt] Microsoft’s Majorana 1 chip carves new path for quantum computing.
This new architecture used to develop the Majorana 1 processor offers a clear path to fit a million qubits on a single chip that can fit in the palm of one’s hand, Microsoft said. This is a needed threshold for quantum computers to deliver transformative, real-world solutions – such as breaking down microplastics into harmless byproducts or inventing self-healing materials for construction, manufacturing or healthcare. All the world’s current computers operating together can’t do what a one-million-qubit quantum computer will be able to do.
@Microsoft: Introducing a breakthrough in quantum computing. The Majorana 1 chip. An approach that ignores the limitations of current models to unleash the power of millions of potential qubits all working together to solve unsolvable challenges in creating new medicines, entirely new materials, and helping our natural world. All on a single chip.
@Microsoft : Majorana 1 Explained: The Path to a Million Qubits.
Hear from the Microsoft team behind the recent breakthrough in physics and quantum computing demonstrated by the new Majorana 1 chip, engineered from an entirely new material that has the potential to scale to millions of qubits on a single chip. Find out what is possible...
@DwarkeshPatel (update; 2/20/25): Satya Nadella shows me the first Majorana 1 Quantum Computing chip.
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☑️ #80 Feb 6, 2025
Industrialization of Silicon Quantum Computers
aist.go.jp: [Excerpt] AIST and Intel Strengthen Collaboration for the Industrialization of Silicon Quantum Computers through MOU Signing.
On February 3, 2025, the National Institute of Advanced Industrial Science and Technology (AIST) announced today that it has signed a Memorandum of Understanding (MOU) with Intel Inc. to strengthen their collaboration towards the industrialization of quantum technology. By integrating and collaborating with the evaluation testbed and device manufacturing functions of the Quantum-AI Fusion Technology Business Development Global Research Center (G-QuAT) and Intel's cutting-edge semiconductor processes, the collaboration aims to realize a system with tens of thousands of quantum bits at an industrially usable level by the early 2030s. Specifically, they will collaborate on various technical aspects necessary for the systematization of silicon quantum computers, including the evaluation and optimization of component materials, development of implementation technologies, development of refrigeration technology for large-scale quantum computers, integration of quantum bits, and development of cryoelectronics for quantum bit control.
The strengthened cooperation between the two institutions is expected to accelerate the dissemination of large-scale, practical quantum computers and create new technological developments and markets.
businesskorea.co.kr (9/3/24): [Excerpt] Intel and AIST to Establish Advanced Semiconductor R&D Hub in Japan.
The R&D hub will be a significant investment, with Intel and AIST planning to pour several hundred billion yen into the project. A key feature of the hub will be the introduction of extreme ultraviolet (EUV) lithography equipment, marking the first time a Japanese research institution will possess such advanced technology. EUV lithography, essential for the mass production of cutting-edge semiconductors, is exclusively produced by the Dutch company ASML. While Rapidus, a major Japanese company, is set to introduce EUV lithography equipment in December this year, no Japanese research institution currently has access to this technology. AIST will take the lead in operating the R&D hub, with Intel providing crucial semiconductor manufacturing expertise using the EUV lithography equipment. Japanese companies will be able to use the equipment for semiconductor test production and other purposes, paying usage fees for access. The new hub will also explore technological cooperation and talent exchange with American research institutions, further enhancing its capabilities. Despite lagging behind South Korea and Taiwan in semiconductor production, Japan has notable strengths in semiconductor equipment and materials. Companies like Lasertec hold a 100% market share in EUV-related inspection equipment, and JSR is a leader in the production of photoresists, a key semiconductor material.
intel.com (11/17/20): [Excerpt] Intel Building the Future of High Performance Computing.
The National Institute of Advanced Industrial Science and Technology (AIST), which will use Ice Lake to power its AI Bridging Green Cloud Infrastructure system being added to its AI Data Center Building. The system is expected to deliver a theoretical peak performance of half-precision floating-point operations of 850 petaflops.
rigetti.com: [Excerpt] Rigetti has operated quantum computers over the cloud continuously since 2017. Steady improvements in the number of qubits and fidelity of the operations with each new generation bring us closer to the inflection point at which quantum computers will begin to outperform classical ones.
ANKAA-3
ANKAA-9Q-3
ANKAA-9Q-1
ANKAA-2
ANKAA-1
ASPEN-M-3
ASPEN-M-2
ASPEN-M-1
ASPEN-11
ASPEN-10
ASPEN-9
ASPEN-8
ASPEN-7
ASPEN-4
ASPEN-1
ACORN
AGAVE
84Q ANKAA-3
Ankaa-3 features a broad hardware redesign enabling superior performance. Enhancements across the technology stack include a new cryogenic hardware design, an overhaul of the qubit circuit layout, precise qubit frequency targeting with Alternating-Bias Assisted Annealing, and flexible gate architecture with precise controls.
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☑️ #78 Dec 21, 2024 🟠 opinion
Probably bigger than AI
@BourbonCap: $GOOG 70-qubit Quantum computer. A refrigerator festooned with microwave cables cools Google's quantum chip.
Quantum computing is a real thing, probably bigger than AI, but it's expensive and you need a big wallet. I like $GOOG and I'm going to keep adding; we are not even close to fair value yet.
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☑️ #77 Dec 17, 2024 🟠 opinion
10 million bitcoins aren't quantum safe
@IanSmith_HSA: I notice 10 million bitcoins aren't quantum safe, so 2027-2028 will probably see 10 mil Bitcoin up for sale because Bitcoin Core devs refuse to read papers on quantum computers.
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@corybates1895: Bitcoin’s current token distribution. What do you notice?
57% Individuals
17.6% Lost
6.6% Not mined yet
5.2% Satoshi Wallet
3.9% ETFs
3.6% Companies
3.4% Miners
2.7% Governments
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☑️ #76 Dec 12, 2024
New York Stock Exchange Showcases IonQ Technology in First Ever Recognition of a Quantum Company
ionq.com: [Excerpt] IonQ’s foundational ion trap chip is displayed at NYSE alongside other revolutionary technologies. With this recognition from NYSE, IonQ follows in the footsteps of other groundbreaking companies such as Coca Cola, FedEx, Goldman Sachs, and HP.
“Having our technology featured at the New York Stock Exchange is a testament to IonQ’s innovation, growth, and position in today’s technology market,” said Peter Chapman, President and CEO of IonQ. “This display reflects not only the potential of quantum computing, but also IonQ’s achievements in taking the technology out of the laboratory and into real-world commercial applications, as the first pure-play quantum computing company to go public in the US.”
The display will remain at the NYSE for six months, during which time it will be viewed by the thousands of entrepreneurs, investors, and global leaders who visit the exchange. The chip’s presence highlights IonQ’s milestones, including the company’s founding in 2015, its public listing debut on October 1, 2021, and its continued progress in advancing quantum computing technology.
ionq.com: [Excerpt] IonQ Forte Enterprise. Data Center Ready, Built For Hybrid Computing.
The first generation of IonQ’s data center deployable quantum computers, IonQ Forte is the first step to integrating quantum computing into production hybrid compute environments. Built on standard racks, IonQ Forte Enterprise’s installation specs are designed to be met by the typical, modern data center.
Source: IonQ, Inc.
ionq.com: [Excerpt] IonQ Forte. Available Since 2022.
Forte is the latest evolution towards a software-configurable quantum computer. Qubit and gate configuration can be tailored to user needs, creating a truly dynamic and flexible system.
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☑️ #75 Dec 12, 2024 🟠 opinion
A former beverage company that changed their name to include quantum
@BillyQuantumAI: The definitive list of publicly traded quantum computing companies.
If I were to create an ETF with REAL exposure to quantum and not a watered down version like $QTUM, this is what it would look like and the relative weighting’s:
$IONQ / $HON use trapped ion qubits and I believe they show the most promise for near term usefulness/easiest path to mass adoption. $HON is likely to spinoff their quantum business in 2025 (it’s called Quantinuum, rumored at $10B valuation) so yo can get more direct exposure then. I think they are neck and neck.
$IBM / $RGTI / $GOOGL use superconducting qubits. Next most likely modality to be useful, imo.
$MSFT and $QBTS uses topological qubits and Quantum annealing. 3rd/4th most likely modality to be useful over medium/long term and may have advantages.
$AMZN / $NVDA don’t build quantum computers but are building an ecosystem to support it. Wouldn’t be surprised if they got more involved down the road.
$QUBT is a former beverage company that changed their name to include quantum. Please don’t give them your money.
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☑️ #74 Dec 11, 2024
Miya?
@0xRacist I work for the government. As a technologist, I cannot keep this under wraps anymore. There is a government-funded organization that is already experimenting with a quantum computer they call Miya, and it is orders of magnitude more powerful than Google's Willow.
This is a gmail interface. No one is using Gmail in the N SA.
No one is openly talking about something top secret in an open email chain. Hiding the "from" line wouldn't help.
If you did "blow the whistle" on Twitter and this was legit glhf in prison.
I'll be watching and waiting for you to sell something in the coming days or weeks. Either that or blatant engagement farming.
Willow is actually impressive. Maybe it can run some models using AI to find out how to make me get more than 50 fps on a monthly rust server one day and to stop running into blatants with DMA cheats.
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☑️ #73 Dec 9, 2024
Google Willow
@sundarpichai: Introducing Willow, our new state-of-the-art quantum computing chip with a breakthrough that can reduce errors exponentially as we scale up using more qubits, cracking a 30-year challenge in the field. In benchmark tests, Willow solved a standard computation in <5 mins that would take a leading supercomputer over 10^25 years, far beyond the age of the universe(!).
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@sundarpichai: We see Willow as an important step in our journey to build a useful quantum computer with practical applications in areas like drug discovery, fusion energy, battery design + more. Details here:
@skdh (update; 12/10/24): I see a lot of confusion about Google's Monday press release about quantum supremacy, so let me try to clarify a few things. They say they did a computation on a ca 100 qubit chip much faster than a conventional (super)computer could do. The particular calculation in question is to produce a random distribution. The result of this calculation has no practical use. They use this particular problem because it has been formally proven (with some technical caveats) that the calculation is difficult to do on a conventional computer (because it uses a lot of entanglement). That also allows them to say things like "this would have taken a septillion years on a conventional computer" etc. It's exactly the same calculation that they did in 2019 on a ca 50 qubit chip. In case you didn't follow that, Google's 2019 quantum supremacy claim was questioned by IBM pretty much as soon as the claim was made and a few years later a group said they did it on a conventional computer in a similar time. So while the announcement is super impressive from a scientific pov and all, the consequences for everyday life are zero. Estimates say that we will need about 1 million qubits for practically useful applications and we're still about 1 million qubits away from that. Also, it's been a recurring story that we have seen numerous times in the past years, that claims of quantum "utility" or quantum "advantage" or quantum "supremacy" or whatever you want to call it later evaporate because some other group finds a clever way to do it on a conventional computer after all.
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☑️ #72 Nov 19, 2024
Demonstrating high-fidelity gates and the world’s largest entangled logical qubit state in Atom Computing’s flagship systems
atom-computing.com: [Excerpt] In September Microsoft announced their collaboration with Atom Computing to build the world’s most powerful quantum machine, and create a unique commercial offering which is available for order today.
Just two months after this announcement we are excited to share the news that together we have now entangled 24 logical qubits, setting a new world record. We also jointly demonstrated error detection, correction, and computation with 28 logical qubits on Atom’s flagship systems. More information on this work can be found in the Azure Quantum technical blog.
NVIDIA Accelerates Google Quantum AI Processor Design With Simulation of Quantum Device Physics
nvidianews.nvidia.com: [Excerpt] NVIDIA CUDA-Q Platform Enables Google Quantum AI Researchers to Create Massive Digital Model of Its Quantum Computer to Solve Design Challenges.
Understanding noise in quantum hardware designs requires complex dynamical simulations capable of fully capturing how qubits within a quantum processor interact with their environment.
These simulations have traditionally been prohibitively computationally expensive to pursue. Using the CUDA-Q platform, however, Google can employ 1,024 NVIDIA H100 Tensor Core GPUs at the NVIDIA Eos supercomputer to perform one of the world’s largest and fastest dynamical simulation of quantum devices — at a fraction of the cost.
People are changing the world with #generativeAI, from drug discovery to chatbots to autonomous machines and beyond.
To achieve these breakthroughs, they need an AI factory - a purpose-built AI engine that's always available and can help ramp their capacity to build AI models at scale. Enter Eos.
An extremely large-scale NVIDIA DGX SuperPOD, Eos is where NVIDIA developers create their leading-edge AI innovations using accelerated computing infrastructure and fully optimized software. Eos is built with 576 #NVIDIADGX H100 systems, NVIDIA Quantum-2 InfiniBand networking and software, providing 18.4 exaflops of AI performance and featuring a total of 4,608 H100 GPUs. Ranked #9 in the TOP500 list of fastest supercomputers, Eos is the apotheosis of NVIDIA's ongoing commitment to pushing the boundaries of AI technology and infrastructure.
hpcwire.com: [Excerpt] Zapata Computing, Early Quantum-AI Software Specialist, Ceases Operations.
Zapata Computing, which was founded in 2017 as a Harvard spinout specializing in quantum software and later pivoted to an AI focus, is ceasing operations, according to an SEC filing last week. Zapata had gone public one year ago, via a SPAC purchase with Andretti Acquisition Corp. It was trying to straddle both the quantum and AI worlds and earlier this year had struck a collaboration deal with quantum computer developer D-Wave.
www.businesswire.com (9/6/23): Zapata AI, an Industrial Generative AI Software Company, to Go Public Through Business Combination with Andretti Acquisition Corp.
engineventures.com: [Excerpt] Industrial Generative AI for Industrial-Scale Problems.
These techniques inspired by quantum systems but running on classical hardware can be used to compress generative models (think the GPT model powering ChatGPT), making them cheaper and more efficient. They can also be more accurate than uncompressed models of the same size and generalize better than classical models. In other words, these quantum-inspired models generate better data. And with this better data, Zapata AI has, for example, found that automobile manufacturing processes can be made more efficient by minimizing idle time between body, paint, and assembly shops. Given the premise that generative AI will be the fastest path to quantum advantage, Zapata AI plans on pursuing these applications of generative AI to various industry tasks.
But Zapata AI isn’t limiting itself to generative AI — it’s also thinking ahead to the quantum future, working with DARPA to benchmark the quantum resources required for industrially relevant applications. Recent research has even indicated the potential for quantum-enhanced generative models to unlock new drugs for previously untreatable conditions. Zapata AI is primed to be a significant player in this breakthrough field and, more specifically, a trailblazer of a highly efficient, quantum-inspired approach to generative AI for industrial-scale problems.
Quantum Computing Playground is a browser-based WebGL Chrome Experiment. It features a GPU-accelerated quantum computer with a simple IDE interface, and its own scripting language with debugging and 3D quantum state visualization features. Quantum Computing Playground can efficiently simulate quantum registers up to 22 qubits, run Grover's and Shor's algorithms, and has a variety of quantum gates built into the scripting language itself.
☑️ #69 Sep 19, 2024
HSBC pilots quantum-safe technology for tokenised gold
Last year, HSBC was the first global bank to offer tokenised physical gold to institutional investors using distributed ledger technology (DLT). This year saw another first, with the launch of HSBC Gold Token for retail investors in Hong Kong, allowing them to acquire fractional ownership of physical gold. Both launches use the technology of the HSBC Orion digital assets platform.
HSBC also tested the interoperability of its gold tokens using post-quantum cryptography (PQC) to move digital assets safely across distributed ledgers via secure networks, addressing clients’ evolving needs and regulations. This included the capability to convert HSBC’s gold tokens into ERC-20 fungible tokens, thereby enhancing distribution and interoperability with other DLTs and digital wallets.
gbm.hsbc.com: Asset tokenisation in the Quantum Age.
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☑️ #68 Sep 10, 2024
Microsoft announces the best performing logical qubits on record and will provide priority access to reliable quantum hardware in Azure Quantum
blogs.microsoft.com: [Excerpt] In April, we announced we’re entering the next phase for solving meaningful problems with reliable quantum computers by demonstrating the most reliable logical qubits with an error rate 800x better than physical qubits. The main issue with today’s noisy intermediate-scale quantum (NISQ) machines is that their physical qubits are too noisy and error-prone, making the machines impractical for real-world applications. That’s why we must transition to using reliable logicalqubits that combine multiple physical qubits together to protect against noise and to maintain coherence for long-running computations.
But quantum computing doesn’t exist in isolation. It requires deep integration with the power of the cloud. We must leverage the best of computing to unlock a new generation of hybrid quantum applications that could solve some of our most pressing challenges — from pioneering more sustainable energy solutions to transforming how we treat disease with the next generation of life-saving therapeutics.
We designed the Azure Quantum compute platform to provide quantum computing across a variety of hardware architectures, enabling the most advanced hybrid quantum applications in the industry — all in a secure, unified and scalable cloud environment — to tackle classically intractable problems. This is our vision for Azure Quantum. Today, we continue to make advances that bring us closer to achieving it with our industry-leading partners, Quantinuum and Atom Computing. With both companies, we want to bring best-in-class solutions to the Azure Quantum platform, and collectively advance and scale resilient quantum capabilities
blogs.microsoft.com (4/3/24): Advancing science: Microsoft and Quantinuum demonstrate the most reliable logical qubits on record with an error rate 800x better than physical qubits.
ionq.com: [Excerpt] Our Novel, Efficient Approach to Quantum Error Correction. An Error Correction Code Breakthrough at IonQ.
The CliNR method described in our paper can be seen as a quantum variant of this strategy. Below, we show a quantum circuit implemented using CliNR. The resemblance with the classical adder example is evident in the design.
Low-cost noise reduction for Clifford circuits: [Abstract]We propose a Clifford noise reduction (CliNR) scheme that provides a reduction of the logical error rate of Clifford circuit with lower overhead than error correction and without the exponential sampling overhead of error mitigation. CliNR implements Clifford circuits by splitting them into sub-circuits that are performed using gate teleportation. A few random stabilizer measurements are used to detect errors in the resources states consumed by the gate teleportation. This can be seen as a teleported version of the CPC scheme, with offline fault-detection making it scalable. We prove that CliNR achieves a vanishing logical error rate for families of n-qubit Clifford circuits with size s such that nsp2 goes to 0, where p is the physical error rate, meaning that it reaches the regime ns=o(1/p2) whereas the direct implementation is limited to s=o(1/p). Moreover, CliNR uses only 3n+1 qubits, 2s+o(s) gates and has zero rejection rate. This small overhead makes it more practical than quantum error correction in the near term and our numerical simulations show that CliNR provides a reduction of the logical error rate in relevant noise regimes.
Quantum Supremacy: The 56-qubit H2-1 computer has broken the previous record set by Google’s Sycamore computer in 2019.
quantinuum.com: [Excerpt] Quantinuum and JPMorgan Chase achieved a 100x improvement over the existing industry benchmark using Quantinuum’s H2-1 quantum computer.
“The fidelity achieved in our random circuit sampling experiment shows unprecedented system-level performance of the Quantinuum quantum computer. We are excited to leverage this high fidelity to advance the field of quantum algorithms for industrial use cases broadly, and financial use cases in particular,”
Marco Pistoia, Head of Global Technology Applied Research at JPMorgan Chase.
blog.research.google (10/23/19): [Excerpts] Quantum Supremacy Using a Programmable Superconducting Processor.
Physicists have been talking about the power of quantum computing for over 30 years, but the questions have always been: will it ever do something useful and is it worth investing in? For such large-scale endeavors it is good engineering practice to formulate decisive short-term goals that demonstrate whether the designs are going in the right direction. So, we devised an experiment as an important milestone to help answer these questions. This experiment, referred to as a quantum supremacy experiment, provided direction for our team to overcome the many technical challenges inherent in quantum systems engineering to make a computer that is both programmable and powerful. To test the total system performance we selected a sensitive computational benchmark that fails if just a single component of the computer is not good enough. Today we published the results of this quantum supremacy experiment in the Nature article, “Quantum Supremacy Using a Programmable Superconducting Processor”. We developed a new 54-qubit processor, named “Sycamore”, that is comprised of fast, high-fidelity quantum logic gates, in order to perform the benchmark testing. Our machine performed the target computation in 200 seconds, and from measurements in our experiment we determined that it would take the world’s fastest supercomputer 10,000 years to produce a similar output.
Process for demonstrating quantum supremacy. Source: Google LLC
nature.com (10/23/19): [Abstract] Quantum supremacy using a programmable superconducting processor.
The promise of quantum computers is that certain computational tasks might be executed exponentially faster on a quantum processor than on a classical processor. A fundamental challenge is to build a high-fidelity processor capable of running quantum algorithms in an exponentially large computational space. Here we report the use of a processor with programmable superconducting qubitsto create quantum states on 53 qubits, corresponding to a computational state-space of dimension 253(about 1016). Measurements from repeated experiments sample the resulting probability distribution, which we verify using classical simulations. Our Sycamore processor takes about 200 seconds to sample one instance of a quantum circuit a million times—our benchmarks currently indicate that the equivalent task for a state-of-the-art classical supercomputer would take approximately 10,000 years. This dramatic increase in speed compared to all known classical algorithms is an experimental realization of quantum supremacyfor this specific computational task, heralding a much-anticipated computing paradigm.
a, Layout of processor, showing a rectangular array of 54 qubits (grey), each connected to its four nearest neighbours with couplers (blue). The inoperable qubit is outlined. b, Photograph of the Sycamore chip. Source: Nature (Nature) ISSN 1476-4687 (online)
Hands-On with Google’s Quantum Computer [Excerpt] Google’s quantum computing chip, dubbed Sycamore, achieved its results using exactly 53 qubits. A 54th one on the chip failed. Sycamore’s aim was to randomly produce strings of 1’s and 0’s, one digit for each qubit, producing 253 bit strings (that is, some 9.700199254740992 quadrillion bit strings).Because of the way the qubits interact with one another, some strings are more likely to emerge than others. Sycamore ran the number generator a million times, then sampled the results to come up with the probability that any given string would appear. The Google team also ran a simpler version of the test on Summit, a supercomputer at Oak Ridge National Laboratory, then extrapolated from those results to verify Sycamore’s output. The new chip performed the task in 200 seconds. The same chore, the researchers estimated, would have taken Summit 10,000 years.
Leveraging Secondary Storage to Simulate Deep 54-qubit Sycamore Circuits[Abstract] In a recent paper, we showed that secondary storage can extend the range of quantum circuits that can be practically simulated with classical algorithms. Here we refine those techniques and apply them to the simulation of Sycamore circuits with 53 and 54 qubits, with the entanglement pattern ABCDCDAB that has proven difficult to classically simulate with other approaches. Our analysis shows that on the Summit supercomputer at Oak Ridge National Laboratories, such circuits can be simulated with high fidelity to arbitrary depth in a matter of days, outputting all the amplitudes.
Quantum supremacy VS "quantum advantage"
“Because the original meaning of the term ‘quantum supremacy,’ as proposed by [California Institute of Technology theoretical physicist] John Preskill in 2012, was to describe the point where quantum computers can do things that classical computers can’t, this threshold has not been met,” the scientists wrote in a post on the IBM Research Blog. Perhaps, then, Google’s achievement might be better labeled “quantum advantage.”
Often abbreviated to just “quantum supremacy,” the term refers to the use of a quantum computer to solve some well-defined set of problems that would take orders of magnitude longer to solve with any currently known algorithms running on existing classical computers—and not for incidental reasons, but for reasons of asymptotic quantum complexity. The emphasis here is on being as sure as possible that the problem really was solved quantumly and really is classically intractable, and ideally achieving the speedup soon (with the noisy, non-universal QCs of the present or very near future). If the problem is also useful for something, then so much the better, but that’s not at all necessary. The Wright Flyer and the Fermi pile weren’t useful in themselves.
Q6. If quantum supremacy calculations just involve sampling from probability distributions, how do you check that they were done correctly?
Glad you asked! This is the subject of a fair amount of theory that I and others developed over the last decade. I already gave you the short version in my answer to Q3: you check by doing statistics on the samples that the QC returned, to verify that they’re preferentially clustered in the “peaks” of the chaotic probability distribution DC. One convenient way of doing this, which Google calls the “linear cross-entropy test,” is simply to sum up Pr[C outputs si] over all the samples s1,…,sk that the QC returned, and then to declare the test a “success” if and only if the sum exceeds some threshold—say, bk/2n, for some constant b strictly between 1 and 2.
Admittedly, in order to apply this test, you need to calculate the probabilities Pr[C outputs si] on your classical computer—and the only known ways to calculate them require brute force and take ~2n time. Is that a showstopper? No, not if n is 50, and you’re Google and are able to handle numbers like 250 (although not 21000, which exceeds a googol, har har). By running a huge cluster of classical cores for (say) a month, you can eventually verify the outputs that your QC produced in a few seconds—while also seeing that the QC was many orders of magnitude faster. However, this does mean that sampling-based quantum supremacy experiments are almost specifically designed for ~50-qubit devices like the ones being built right now. Even with 100 qubits, we wouldn’t know how to verify the results using all the classical computing power available on earth.
(Let me stress that this issue is specific to sampling experiments like the ones that are currently being done. If Shor’s algorithm factored a 2000-digit number, it would be easy to check the result by simply multiplying the claimed factors and running a primality test on them. Likewise, if a QC were used to simulate some complicated biomolecule, you could check its results by comparing them to experiment.)
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☑️ #65 May 1, 2024
Disentangling Hype from Practicality: On Realistically Achieving Quantum Advantage
cacm.acm.org: [excerpt] What are the promising applications to realize quantum advantage?
Operating on fundamentally different principles than conventional computers, quantum computers promise to solve a variety of important problems that seemed forever intractable on classical computers. Leveraging the quantum foundations of nature, the time to solve certain problems on quantum computers grows more slowly with the size of the problem than on classical computers—this is called quantum speedup. Going beyond quantum supremacy,2 which was the demonstration of a quantum computer outperforming a classical one for an artificial problem, an important question is finding meaningful applications (of academic or commercial interest) that can realistically be solved faster on a quantum computer than on a classical one. We call this a practical quantum advantage, or quantum practicality for short.
This is a comprehensive catalog of quantum algorithms. If you notice any errors or omissions, please email me at spj.jordan@gmail.com. (Alternatively, you may submit a pull request to the repository on github.) Although I cannot guarantee a prompt response, your help is appreciated and will be acknowledged.
Quantum Machines Announces Deep Quantum-Classical Integration to Power Quantum-Accelerated Supercomputers With NVIDIA
quantum-machines.co: [Excerpt] The first deployment of the combined solution is expected at the end of this year.
The DGX Quantum system tightly integrates QM’s OPX+ quantum controller with the NVIDIA Grace Hopper Superchip to create a quantum-accelerated supercomputing system. This is the first purpose-built hardware that can enable a quantum speedup at the scale and performance required for world-leading supercomputers. DGX Quantum also supports NVIDIA’s open-source CUDA Quantum programming model, which enables the integration and programming of quantum processing units (QPUs), GPUs and CPUs in one system. The Israel Quantum Computing Center, which is being built by a consortium of companies led by Quantum Machines, will be the site of the first deployment of DGX Quantum at the end of this year.
globenewswire.com (update; 12/10/24): Quantum Machines and Rigetti Announce Successful AI-Powered Calibration of a Quantum Computer.
AI-powered tools from Quantum Elements and Qruise remotely automated the calibration of a Rigetti QPU integrated with Quantum Machines’ control system. This work was part of the “AI for Quantum Calibration Challenge” hosted at the Israeli Quantum Computing Center (IQCC).
The two companies participating in the Challenge, Quantum Elements and Qruise, automated the calibration of a 9-qubit Rigetti Novera™ QPU integrated with Quantum Machines’ advanced OPX1000 control system and NVIDIA DGX Quantum, a unified system for quantum-classical computing that NVIDIA built with Quantum Machines. This achievement not only showcases the potential of AI in quantum computer calibration, but also highlights the growing maturity and collaboration within the quantum computing ecosystem.
OPX1000 is equipped with redundancy and hot-swappable critical components, including power supplies, fans, management ports, and clocks. This design ensures high availability, guaranteeing uninterrupted, long-term operation in demanding HPC and data-center environments for both cloud and on-premises services. Additionally, OPX1000 adheres to industry safety standards, including CE, FCC, and other local certifications.
Furthermore, OPX1000 seamlessly integrates with native GPUs through DGX Quantum – a co-developed solution by Quantum Machines and NVIDIA for hardware quantum acceleration.
DGX Quantum > nvidia.com: NVDIA DGX Quantum. The integrated system for quantum-accelerated computing.
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☑️ #63 Mar 19, 2024
LightSolver Laser Computing System Empowers Enterprises To Solve Optimization Problems
thequantuminsider.com: [Excerpt] PRESS RELEASE — LightSolver, creator of a new laser-based computing paradigm, today announced a breakthrough in quantum-inspired high-performance computing. Its LPU100 system unleashes the power of 100 lasers to solve the toughest optimization problems, challenging the processing times of quantum and supercomputers. The LPU100’s laser array represents 100 continuous variables, and can tackle problems with up to 120^100 combinations, empowering organizations to enhance their business and engineering processes and make mission-critical decisions faster than ever before.
LightSolver announced an advance in quantum-inspired high-performance computing.
The LPU100 system unleashes the power of 100 lasers to solve tough optimization problems.
Company officials say it can challenge the processing times of quantum and supercomputers.
Quantum Security for the Financial Sector: Informing Global Regulatory Approaches
weforum.org: [Transcription] [Excerpts] This white paper, developed by the World Economic Forum in collaboration with the Financial Conduct Authority, offers guidance for businesses and regulators to ensure a collaborative and globally harmonized approach to quantum security.
Zigmunt Lozinski: From Quantum’s Black Swan, at Davos today. The impact of developments in quantum computing, quantum sensing and post-quantum cryptography on the world economy. We will see meshed hybrid quantum systems that combine quantum computers with classic high performance computers. Quantum systems will address problems we can never solve conventionally. Read more
Zigmunt Lozinski: If you look at the National Security Agency s published timeline for the US Government systems to transition to Post Quantum Cryptography, they are assuming a 10 year timescale.
spectrum.ieee.org: [Transcription] [Excerpts] Hype is everywhere, skeptics say, and practical applications are still far away.
Meta’s head of AI research Yann LeCun recently made headlines after pouring cold water on the prospect of quantum computers making a meaningful contribution in the near future. Speaking at a media event celebrating the 10-year anniversary of Meta’s Fundamental AI Research team he said the technology is “a fascinating scientific topic,” but that he was less convinced of “the possibility of actually fabricating quantum computers that are actually useful.”
While LeCun is not an expert in quantum computing, leading figures in the field are also sounding a note of caution. Oskar Painter, head of quantum hardware for Amazon Web Services, says there is a “tremendous amount of hype” in the industry at the minute and “it can be difficult to filter the optimistic from the completely unrealistic.”
IBM Debuts Next-Generation Quantum Processor & IBM Quantum System Two, Extends Roadmap to Advance Era of Quantum Utility
ibm.com: [Transcription] [Excerpts] NEW YORK, Dec. 4, 2023 /PRNewswire/ -- Today, at the annual IBM Quantum Summit in New York, IBM (NYSE: IBM) debuted 'IBM Quantum Heron,' the first in a new series of utility-scale quantum processors with an architecture engineered over the past four years to deliver IBM's highest performance metrics and lowest error rates of any IBM Quantum processor to date.
IBM also unveiled IBM Quantum System Two, the company's first modular quantum computer and cornerstone of IBM's quantum-centric supercomputing architecture. The first IBM Quantum System Two, located in Yorktown Heights, New York, has begun operations with three IBM Heron processors and supporting control electronics.
IBM Quantum Heron
Credit: Ray Lavine for IBM. Source: IBM Corporation
IBM Quantum System Two
IBM Debuts Next-Generation Quantum Processor & IBM Quantum System Two, Extends Roadmap to Advance Era of Quantum Utility
First IBM's modular quantum computer
IBM Quantum System Two is now operational at our lab in Yorktown Heights, NY
The hardware and software for the era of quantum utility is here
ibm.com: [Transcription] [Excerpts] We’ve entered a new era of quantum computing.
Breaking the 1,000-qubit barrier with Condor
We have introduced IBM Condor, a 1,121 superconducting qubit quantum processor based on our cross-resonance gate technology. Condor pushes the limits of scale and yield in chip design with a 50% increase in qubit density, advances in qubit fabrication and laminate size, and includes over a mile of high-density cryogenic flex IO wiring within a single dilution refigerator. With performance comparable to our previous 433-qubit Osprey, it serves as an innovation milestone, solving scale and informing future hardware design.
Credit: Ray Lavine for IBM. Source: IBM Corporation
Qiskit Patterns: a programming template outlining the structure of quantum programs and a logical framework for building quantum algorithms and applications at scale
OQC launches OQC Toshiko, the world’s first enterprise ready quantum platform
oxfordquantumcircuits.com: [Transcription] [Excerpt] At the Global Investment Summit, the company also announces that SBI Investment, Japan’s premier VC fund, is leading OQC’s $100m round.
Bringing quantum into data centres makes it possible to offer hybrid compute, integrated quantum and HPC, to the market. OQC has achieved this by adopting an advanced networking infrastructure, Digital Fabric Interconnect, to enable secure, hybrid compute for customers.
To bring quantum out of the lab and into the enterprise, OQC is collaborating with leading global companies including Equinix, NVIDIA, AWS and McKinsey. OQC Toshiko is available today in private preview with expanding availability across public cloud and data centre fabric in the coming months.
Under certain conditions, these models approximate the distributions of their datasets using truncated Fourier series. Owing to the trigonometric nature of this fit, angle-embedded quantum neural networks may have difficulty fitting nonharmonic features in a given dataset. Moreover, the interpretability of hybrid neural networks remains a challenge.
In this study, we introduce an interpretable class of hybrid quantum neural networks that pass the inputs of the dataset in parallel to (a) a classical multi-layered perceptron and (b) a variational quantum circuit, after which the 2 outputs are linearly combined. The quantum neural network creates a smooth sinusoidal foundation based on the training set, and the classical perceptrons fill the nonharmonic gaps in the landscape. We demonstrate this claim using 2 synthetic datasets sampled from periodic distributions with added protrusions as noise.
The training results indicate that parallel hybrid network architecture can improve solution optimality on periodic datasets with additional noise.
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☑️ #54 Nov 14, 2023
D-Wave Demonstrates Error Mitigation on the Advantage2 Prototype, Extending Coherent Annealing Range by an Order of Magnitude
dwavesys.com: [Transcription] [Excerpt] PALO ALTO, Calif., BURNABY, B.C., ---November 14, 2023 -- D-Wave Quantum Inc. (NYSE: QBTS), a leader in quantum computing systems, software, and services and the world’s first commercial supplier of quantum computers, today announced important research results that demonstrate successful Quantum Error Mitigation (QEM) in its Advantage2 annealing quantum computing experimental prototype. The techniques reduce errors in quantum simulations, producing results consistent with the quantum system maintaining its quantum state (“coherence”) for an order of magnitude longer time than an unmitigated system. These techniques are expected to drive performance advancements in the forthcoming Advantage2 system and future processors.
The Advantage quantum system is the first and only quantum computer built for business. Source: D-Wave Quantum Inc.
Promising Results Expected to Drive Higher Coherence for Forthcoming Advantage2 System and Future Processors, Furthers Quantum Supremacy Efforts.
🔹Related content:
Quantum error mitigation (QEM) in quantum annealing: [Transcription] [Abstract] Quantum Error Mitigation (QEM) presents a promising near-term approach to reduce error when estimating expectation values in quantum computing. Here, we introduce QEM techniques tailored for quantum annealing, using Zero-Noise Extrapolation (ZNE). We implement ZNE through zero-temperature extrapolation as well as energy-time rescaling. We conduct experimental investigations into the quantum critical dynamics of a transverse-field Ising spin chain, demonstrating the successful mitigation of thermal noise through both of these techniques. Moreover, we show that energy-time rescaling effectively mitigates control errors in the coherent regime where the effect of thermal noise is minimal. Our ZNE results agree with exact calculations of the coherent evolution over a range of annealing times that exceeds the coherent annealing range by almost an order of magnitude.
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☑️ #53 Nov 13, 2023
IQM Quantum Computers to advance future hybrid quantum applications with NVIDIA
meetiqm.com: [Transcription] [Excerpt] Collaboration will enable users of IQM’s quantum processing units to program hybrid quantum-classical applications with NVIDIA CUDA Quantum, an open-source platform.
Denver, USA, 13th November 2023 – IQM Quantum Computers (IQM), a global leader in building quantum computers, today announced a collaboration with NVIDIA to advance future hybrid quantum applications through NVIDIA CUDA Quantum, an open-source platform for integrating and programming quantum processing units in one system.
Quantum startup Atom Computing first to exceed 1,000 qubits
atom-computing.com: [Transcription] [Excerpt] October 24, 2023 - Boulder, CO - Atom Computing announced it has created a 1,225-site atomic array, currently populated with 1,180 qubits, in its next-generation quantum computing platform.
This is the first time a company has crossed the 1,000-qubit threshold for a universal gate-based system, planned for release next year. It marks an industry milestone toward fault-tolerant quantum computers capable of solving large-scale problems.
