With the new IBM processor, quantum computing achieves the possibility of penetrating the secrets of neutrons and protons that make up our bodies and stars, as well as deciphering the greatest mysteries of the universe.
IBM has opened a new frontier in quantum computing: it has created a processor called Eagle capable of processing information so complex that it cannot be managed or simulated on a traditional computer, according to the company in a statement.
With this development, IBM achieves a 127-qubit quantum processor, well above the 76 qubit announced by China last month to achieve the crown of quantum sovereignty.
IBM has already warned that its new IBM Quantum System Two is only a first step, as it aims to scale to a 433-qubit processor called Osprey next year, and even hit a 1,121-qubit processor called Condor in 2023, The Register reports. .
The current system is already 100 times faster than IBM Cloud in quantum applications, and could enable the discovery of new drugs.
These discoveries require simulations that involve large amounts of data difficult to manage by classical computers, according to the company.
Technological revolution
IBM notes that this development is another step in a technological revolution in the history of quantum computing .
All this technology is based on a basic unit of information called the qubit: unlike the bit, which can only have two values (one or zero), the qubit can take several values at the same time, that is, it manifests a quantum system with two simultaneous eigen states.
Speaking of the new development, IBM CEO Arvind Krishna has pointed out that quantum computing could help tackle problems that are too challenging for even today's most powerful supercomputers, such as figuring out how to make better batteries or sequestering emissions from carbon, he explained to Axios.
In its statement, IBM also notes that as quantum processors scale up, each additional qubit doubles the amount of spatial complexity, the amount of memory space required to run algorithms, allowing a classical computer to simulate as well. reliably quantum circuits.
Bodies and stars
There is another aspect of this development, Futura Sciences highlights: due to this technological feat, quantum computing may have at its disposal the solution of some of the secrets of the protons and neutrons that make up our bodies and stars.
This diagnosis is based on another no less significant result in quantum computing, reached by the Institute for Quantum Computing at the University of Waterloo, which is reported in another statement.
A team of researchers from this institute has just carried out the first simulation of baryons (fundamental quantum particles) using quantum computing, as explained in an article published in Nature Communications.
With this result, the team has taken a significant step towards more complex quantum simulations that will allow scientists to study neutron stars and learn more about the early moments of the universe, according to the French journal.
Quantum chromodynamics
The new IBM quantum computer opens a new frontier to research of this nature, which is based on quantum chromodynamics and has already achieved the first baryon simulation, obtained in the current IBM quantum computer.
The authors of this research consider that an even more powerful quantum computer, such as the Eagle and its later developments Osprey and Condor, can allow us to simulate the same interactions that occur in a particle accelerator and to know much better the origins of the universe.
In theory, the way is now open for completely realistic simulations of quantum chromodynamics , a quantum field theory that describes one of the fundamental forces, the strong interaction, which is what determines the dynamics of baryons, keys to understanding the structure of the universe.
Source: IBM