IBM’s Eagle – New Most Powerful Quantum Processor

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New architecture allowed us to build a new most powerful quantum processor. With 127 qubits IBM believes it reached quantum supremacy. But this is not the end...


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Image by bodkins18 from Pixabay

IBM is part of the quantum race. Recently, the introduced the quantum processor Eagle which is currently the most powerful quantum processor in the world. It comes with 127 qubits and represents a major step on the journey towards commercial quantum computers which will succeed current traditional computers.

Quantum computers are an incredible practical application of the still-mysterious world of quantum physics. Conventional computers process and store data as bits – basic electronic elements that can either be zeroes or ones. Quantum computers have qubits instead. Qubits can achieve a state of superposition and thus can achieve being both a zero and a one at the same time. This means that every additional qubit dramatically increases the potential computational power of such a device.

With its 127 qubits, Eagle is now the apex predator in the world of quantum computing. It leaves the Chinese 113-qubit processor Jiuzhang 2.0, the Bristlecone from Google, and even IBM’s own Hummingbird far behind. IBM says that the breakthrough quantum processor was created thanks to a new architecture that allowed them to place many more qubits into the processor. The qubits in Eagle are in a single layer lowering their error rate.

IBM is convinced that Eagle will be their first quantum processor that will surpass the computational power of conventional supercomputers. When this happens it will be called quantum supremacy. They are estimating that you would need so many bits as there are atoms in the humans on Earth to repeat one of the quantum states of Eagle.

Quantum supremacy is the holy grail for everyone who partakes in the quantum race. But, IBM isn’t the first who claims they achieved quantum supremacy. Google claimed quantum supremacy back in 2019 with its quantum processor Sycamore and its 53 qubits. But, IBM protested that Sycamore computations would be achieved with conventional supercomputers in a few days – that’s not exactly unachievable. The Chinese processor Jiuzhang did a little better as it was capable of finishing certain computations in a few minutes while a conventional supercomputer would take about 2.5 billion years.

The Eagle quantum processor is already available on the IBM Cloud for select members of the IBM Quantum Network. At the same time, IBM has revealed some of its quantum plans. Next year (2022) they plan to release Quantum Osprey with 433 qubits, then in 2023 Quantum Condor with 1,121 qubits.

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I think this way more powerful than any Intel or AMD processors available today.

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