The technological International Business Machines (IBM) presented this Wednesday its new experimental chip, Quantum Loon, which aims to create “more powerful and error-resistant quantum supercomputers.”
The company explains – in a statement – that the Quantum Loon is a test processor that includes “many of the key components” that will allow the quantum computing of the future to perform correct calculations despite the errors existing in its environment.
The chip, unveiled today at IBM’s annual Developer Conference in Atlanta, aligns with IBM’s goal of launching the world’s first large-scale, fault-tolerant quantum supercomputer in 2029.
This supercomputer, called IBM Quantum Starling, will be twenty thousand times more powerful than current ones and will lay the foundation for “practical and scalable” quantum computing, according to the company.
Loon is, according to the company, a key piece in the construction of IBM Quantum Starling, as it allows the company to test new technologies that could be useful to create more powerful quantum computers.
IBM research director Jay Gambetta explained to the Marketwatch portal that quantum chips like Loon go beyond the simple mathematics that classical computing performs.
“There are many examples, whether in chemistry or differential equations, that classical computers simply cannot do. This new mathematics can simulate them, because they calculate in the same way that nature does,” Gambetta noted.
According to the executive, the supercomputer will be able to solve these types of calculations on a scale “large enough to make it practical.”
This goal “requires demonstrating an error-correcting code called LDPC that requires inventing complicated packaging technology (internal and physical design of the chip),” something Loon is capable of doing, Gambetta added.
After hearing the news, IBM shares on the Wall Street stock market rose 2.5%.