Tuesday, March 26, 2024

Honeywell introduces its new System Model H1 quantum computer

Renowned for its aerospace and industrial technology, Honeywell has returned to the computer market it left three decades ago. After a few months of teasing, the company has finally shed more light on its new System Model H1 quantum computer that, it claims, offers the highest “quantum volume” out there.

The System Model H1 features 10 fully connected qubits and, according to Honeywell, delivers double the performance thanks to its quantum volume increased to 128.

This milestone captures our differentiated features of increased qubit counts, high fidelity gate operations, all-to-all connectivity, and long coherence times,” said Honeywell Quantum Solutions President Tony Uttley. “As we continue to improve our system, these factors will increasingly allow customers to execute more complex algorithms.

Honeywell’s system is structurally different from the quantum computers created by Google and IBM. These companies build their qubits on superconducting circuits that operate at temperatures close to absolute zero. Honeywell claims its approach offers distinct advantages over competitive solutions. Qubits in other systems store quantum information for only a few microseconds, but Honeywell’s ionic qubits have a coherence period of seconds. This stability allows System H1 to perform certain data operations that are difficult or impossible for other systems.

Honeywell offers the 10-qubit H1 system to enterprise customers through a subscription through Microsoft’s cloud API and Azure Quantum service and through partners Zapata Computing and Cambridge Quantum Computing.

In announcing the product, Tony Uttley, President of Honeywell Quantum Solutions, added that his company’s unique methodology allows for systematic and continuous improvement of H1 generation systems by increasing the number of qubits, improving accuracy, and modifying functionality.

In addition, the company announced that it is embarking on the integration of its next quantum computer, System Model H2, and is already developing technologies for the third generation. With each of these iterations, the company plans to consistently increase the number of qubits and improve computational stability.