IBM said quantum computing will hit quantum advantage in 2026 starting with chemistry use cases followed by optimization and mathematical computation.
Speaking at an IBM Think keynote, Jay Gambetta, IBM Fellow and Vice President of IBM Quantum, said the industry has moved to solving problems in a hybrid way with quantum systems and classical supercomputers. The next step would be leveraging quantum computing to solve problems classical computing can't. "We believe quantum advantage will actually happen by 2026," said Gambetta. "And it's not just us. It's a community of researchers. Every month, every week new papers are put out with different examples."
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Gambetta added:
"We're going to see quantum advantage in chemistry first, followed closely by optimization. And third, there is a lot of exciting work in mathematical problems where the teams are exploring AI quantum machine learning problems that could even have an impact in AI in the future."
IBM CEO Arvind Krishna noted in his Think keynote that bigger things were on tap for quantum computing and scale will occur "in the 4-, maybe 5 year time frame."
Krishna said:
"Quantum is no longer science fiction. It's now in the realm of engineering. And when you're in the realm of engineering, the question becomes, how do you get that next step? And then these systems are going to be at a scale that is going to be truly remarkable and truly surprising."
He said IBM can bring the same engineering rigor to quantum computing that it brings to the mainframe.
"What do I mean by engineering rigor? We should stand up a quantum computer, and it runs for a full year without breaking down, without needing a room full of experts to kind of retune it after every application, and it can stay and maintain itself. People can access it with just an API. That's what I mean by the engineering rigor of making it a computer, not just a science experiment," said Krishna.
Gambetta said that "we have a roadmap to create a fault tolerant quantum computer by 2029." He said IBM will have more to say about the roadmap in the weeks ahead.
