IBM Q brings quantum computing to the cloud for businesses

IBM Q, as the product is called, will deliver quantum systems and services via Bluemix, IBM’s cloud platform.

IBM has taken an historical step towards mass adoption of quantum computing by launching a commercialised quantum computing system aimed at businesses and the science industry. The two companies also predicted that in the next few years “quantum supremacy” will be achieved, which means that quantum computers will be able to solve at least some problems that can’t be solved by today’s fastest supercomputers. It also plans to release a software development kit by mid-year for building “simple” quantum applications and programs.

The API will give developers and programmers the ability to test and build interfaces between cloud-based quantum computers and classical computers, without extensive background knowledge.

IBM’s presently existing 5-qubit quantum computer is now being offered as a public cloud program called the Quantum Experience, which will remain free.

IBM also announced a new API for the IBM Quantum Experience, allowing developers to more easily use its five qubit system for their programs and applications. Commercial IBM Q systems with more than 50 qubits processing capacity will enable IBM to “collaborate with key industry partners to develop applications that exploit the quantum speedup of such systems”. “The goal will be to scale to even more complex molecules and try to predict chemical properties with higher precision than possible with classical computers”.

IBM is hoping to use quantum computing to significantly expand the analytics power of its Watson cognitive technology and power a new wave of industrial innovation.

IBM researchers have been working on the problems related to handling qubits, and the quantum computer will prove their success, company officials said. “That’s ultimately what needs to be done to make quantum computing a more consumable entity”.

If it lives up to its promise, quantum computers could yield breakthroughs in medicine, financial services, supply chain logistics, artificial intelligence and cloud security, IBM says.

Last year, IBM opened their five-qubit computer in their NY labs to the public through a cloud service.

IBM has revealed its ambitions to bring the power of quantum computing to the business world.

Looking to the future, quantum computers could be used to solve some of society’s greatest problems. We understand that a quantum computer with n qubits can be in an arbitrary superposition of up to 2 different states simultaneously. IBM launched the Quantum Experience in May 2016.

Thanks to its size and limitations the D-Wave 2X isn’t exactly a universal system. Since the launch of the IBM Quantum Experience less than a year ago, the company says that about 40,000 users in more than 100 countries have run more than 275,000 experiments on it.

Further, in the official release, the company added that it is also releasing a 20 qubit simulator on the Quantum Experience to model circuits using quantum technologies.

“At the moment we find ourselves in something like the early ’40s or ’50s of computing”, says Dario Gil, vice president of science and solutions at IBM Research, referring to the era that spawned the modern computer.