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IBM Just Put A Quantum Computer On The Cloud For Anyone To Use

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As IBM’s research division pursues a multi-year quest to build a universal quantum computer more powerful than any supercomputer in the world, it’s sharing its latest progress with smaller quantum processors on the cloud for the world to join in.

Tucked off a nondescript hallway in IBM’s sprawling and hard-to-find T.J. Watson Research Center an hour north of New York City you’ll find a room with several hanging white cylinders, each surrounded by racks of servers. They’re about the size of fridges—which is exactly what they are. But these fridges cool their insides down to just 0.015 degrees above 0 kelvin, or about -459 degrees Fahrenheit. “We like to say it’s colder than space,” says Jerry Chow, manager of the experimental quantum computing team at IBM Research. They’re so cold because inside, IBM’s latest breakthroughs in quantum computing are hard at work.

At 50 qubits, a quantum computer will be able to run experiments that no traditional computer will be able to emulate, no matter how big or how fast. IBM Research’s fridges today house quantum processors of just five. That’s not nearly enough to replicate many of the tasks we expect of computers today. But each processor can run a complex algorithm or experiment in just a second or two, and churn out results for eight hours before the system needs a refresher. Most importantly, they consistently work. As Chow’s colleague Jay Gambetta, manager of theory of quantum computing and information for Big Blue, explains it: “Quantum isn’t weird or hard, it’s just different.”

Now IBM is giving the keys to one of the quantum processors to the public in the hopes of proving just that. At a new site called the IBM Quantum Experience, researchers and quantum fans will now be able to run their own experiments on one of the research lab’s actual quantum processors hooked up to the cloud. IBM is offering tutorials on quantum mechanics and an interface for easily dragging and dropping operations to create an algorithm to run on the quantum processor. Users can also click a button to simulate the same procedure on a traditional computer to compare hypothetical results with the actual. IBM will keep a log of past experiments so researchers can find similar tests run by peers.

For now, it’s all free, the results of a $3 billion research commitment IBM made in 2014 to develop new computing technologies independent of Moore’s Law. A floor above the quantum lab, other researchers work on tiny carbon nanotubes that could someday replace a silicon chip. IBM’s 5 qubit processors were made possible by a previous breakthrough of using a lattice to arrange five qubits in a way that allowed it to detect quantum errors. But the company still has years of work to get to the universal quantum computer and a potentially massive pay-off for its work.

Besides allowing researchers playing with the IBM quantum processor on the cloud, IBM will also look to create immediate value by inviting its customers to join a new group called the IBM Research Frontiers Institute. Members of the group, which includes Samsung, JSR and Honda, can send scientists to attach to IBM Research’s work groups for several years, while inviting IBM’s top scientists to explore their work. As IBM’s quantum computing research gets closer to a commercial product, those companies would have access to the earliest versions and be able to build on top.

In their massive complex surrounded by forest just north of Chappaqua, IBM’s researchers hope their work will help quantum research become less isolated and more of a collaboration. But IBM Research vice president Dario Gil says that his teams have a mandate to build technologies each decade that change the foundations of computing. “When we do that, we can move the whole company.”

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