Two years ago, IBM promised the quantum computing community that it would develop quantum algorithms that incorporate circuits with 100 qubits. Fulfilling that commitment, IBM at the Quantum™ Developer Conference 2024 has announced a quantum computer that runs quantum circuits with up to 5,000 two-qubit gate operations.
This new system uses Qiskit software powered by the second revision of the IBM Quantum Heron also called R2 Heron. The IBM R2 Heron is the new 156-qubit quantum processing unit and Qiskit is the world’s most efficient quantum software.
To compare, IBM’s Quantum Eagle processor went out to only 2,880 two-qubit gates. Meaning that the IBM Heron has nearly twice the number of gates of its predecessors.
In IBM’s 2023 quantum utility experiment, its most powerful quantum computer at the time took 112 hours to complete. For the same experiment, using the same data points, the latest IBM Quantum Heron took only 2.2 hours. This new system demonstrated 50 times faster results than its companions.
This new quantum computer is now available in IBM’s global quantum data centers. It can be used to tackle scientific problems of materials, chemistry, life sciences, and high-energy physics.
This supercomputer aims to integrate advanced quantum and classical computers to break down complex problems with its efficient software. The performant software allows each architecture to solve the algorithm for which it is best suited.
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“Advances across our hardware and Qiskit are enabling our users to build new algorithms in which advanced quantum and classical supercomputing resources can be knit together to combine their respective strengths,” said Jay Gambetta, Vice President of IBM Quantum.
“As we advance on our roadmap towards error-corrected quantum systems, the algorithms discovered today across industries will be key to realizing the potential to solve new problems realized through the convergence of QPUs, CPUs, and GPUs.”
The most performant quantum processing
The new Heron chip features 156 qubits in a heavy-hex layout with the tunable coupler architecture. This arrangement is to reduce unwanted interaction between qubits or quantum gates; Crosstalk. Also, the two-level system mitigation enables to reduction in the source of noise that degrades the accuracy of computations.
As running long circuits requires speed, IBM has updated its quantum software stack to optimize data movement. Using parameter compiling, the system accomplished the speed of 150,000 circuit layer operations per second (CLOPS).
As the Heron runs beyond the capabilities of classical computers, IBM claims that it can help researchers in their discovery. With it along circuits, it can be employed in quantum computers in places where classical computers can’t keep up.
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