Standing room only as IBM\u2019s Borja Peropadre lays out the roadmap to quantum advantage, and why 2026 could be the inflection point<\/p>\n
IBM expects \u201cstrong claims of quantum advantage\u201d to emerge this year. That was the headline message from Borja Peropadre, who leads a team of algorithm engineers at IBM Quantum, speaking to a packed room at the Fontainebleau\u2019s CES Foundry in Las Vegas.<\/p>\n
Peropadre was direct about IBM\u2019s mission: \u201cOur mission at IBM is to bring useful quantum computing to the world.\u201d He outlined a roadmap first published in 2019, since extended to 2033, noting that \u201cyear over year, we\u2019ve been delivering in that vision and in this roadmap.\u201d<\/p>\n
The presentation centred on three milestones. The first, \u201cquantum utility,\u201d was achieved in 2023. The second, quantum advantage, is expected this year. The third, fault-tolerant quantum computing with error correction, is targeted for 2029.<\/p>\n
Peropadre referenced a prediction made by Jay Gambetta, then vice president of IBM Quantum and now Director of IBM Research, at Supercomputing 2024: \u201cMy prediction is quantum advantage is going to happen in the next two years. But only if HPC and quantum communities work together.\u201d Peropadre added: \u201cSo we are entering into that year now.\u201d<\/p>\n
The case for 2026<\/p>\n
IBM\u2019s confidence stems from a 2023 paper that, as Peropadre put it, \u201ccreated a lot of excitement and a lot of confusion.\u201d The paper demonstrated that a noisy quantum computer using 127 qubits and almost 3,000 two-qubit gates produced accurate expectation values \u201cbeyond the capabilities of brute force classical computation.\u201d<\/p>\n
Peropadre illustrated the significance with a thought experiment. \u201cImagine that I give you these ten white boxes. Each of them is a computing machine.\u201d Nine were state-of-the-art classical simulators using approximate algorithms. One was a quantum computer. The outcome: \u201cThe quantum computer is the one that is basically on the average of all these things.\u201d<\/p>\n
That might sound underwhelming, but Peropadre explained the implications: \u201cThere are problems out there where we don\u2019t have brute force exact classical algorithms. And quantum computers can help today to bring solutions or provide solutions where approximate methods really struggle.\u201d<\/p>\n
IBM has defined two criteria for quantum advantage. The first is \u201cquantum separation,\u201d which Peropadre described as \u201cthis provable separation or this provable outperformance in efficiency, time to solution, accuracy, or quality.\u201d The second is validation: \u201cIf I have a quantum computer that produces a faster outcome than a classical computer, but I don\u2019t have brute force or exact classical algorithms that can verify or can tell me that this result is accurate, how can I believe that the quantum computer is doing the right thing? This is what we mean by validation. We need to make sure that the output is rigorously validated.\u201d<\/p>\n
IBM has identified three families of problems where noisy quantum computers can produce verifiable results. The first is \u201cobservable estimation,\u201d covering dynamics in materials and chemistry. The second is \u201cvariational problems,\u201d such as computing the ground state or minimum energy of molecules. Peropadre explained: \u201cIf you get an energy that is lower than the best classical method, we know that there will be quantum advantage there.\u201d The third category is \u201cclassically verifiable\u201d problems, like Shor\u2019s algorithm for factoring: \u201cIf you want to know if that solution is right, you just need to multiply the two smaller numbers and see if the number that you have is right or not.\u201d<\/p>\n
IBM is already running experiments across these categories. Using \u201cmirror circuits,\u201d which Peropadre described as circuits that are \u201ceasy for us to verify\u201d because \u201cwe do one operation on the contrary, so basically it does nothing,\u201d IBM tested two independent quantum computers: IBM Boston and IBM Pittsburgh, both running Heron chips. \u201cWe got the same result. This is giving us the feeling that we are getting strong confirmation that we are approaching to compute problems that are beyond what classical computers can produce.\u201d<\/p>\n
On variational problems, quantum computers are \u201cstarting to outperform the best classical methods that have been the legacy methods in quantum chemistry over the years.\u201d Peropadre called this \u201canother direction where we see potential for quantum computers to outperform classical methods in 2026.\u201d<\/p>\n
But he was candid about the competition: \u201cA few days before we were going to present these results, we came ourselves with a classical method that was much better than the quantum computer. I don\u2019t think this is something\u2026 this is the nature of science. This is what\u2019s going to happen in the next few years. We\u2019re going to see this feedback loop of quantum basically trying to outperform classical but classical trying to outperform quantum.\u201d<\/p>\n
He added a significant qualifier: \u201cWe don\u2019t think there\u2019s going to be a strong claim or a final goal post that says quantum advantage has been achieved on this. I think it\u2019s super healthy from a scientific standpoint that we keep working with the classical community and that we keep seeing this evolution of classical and quantum algorithms together.\u201d<\/p>\n
To track this competition, IBM and partners including Algorithmiq, the Flatiron Institute, and BlueQubit have created open-source \u201cadvantage trackers.\u201d Peropadre explained: \u201cYou can go online, you can check it\u2019s open source, and you can basically follow kind of the race between classical and quantum computers.\u201d Researchers post their institution, method, circuit details, qubit and gate counts, and results. \u201cWe really expect and we really hope that this gets a lot of traction this year. Everybody joins, everybody puts their results.\u201d<\/p>\n
The hardware pipeline<\/p>\n
Peropadre walked through the progression of IBM\u2019s quantum processors, using the number of two-qubit gates as the key metric for circuit complexity.<\/p>\n
\u201cIn 2016, when we put the first quantum computer on the cloud, we had a quantum complexity of three two-qubit gates. Fast forward to 2023, when we did this utility paper, we get almost to 3,000 gates. Last year, we already achieved 5,000 two-qubit gates.\u201d<\/p>\n
The\u00a0roadmap<\/a>\u00a0projects continued growth: \u201cBy the end of this year, we\u2019re going to have 7,500 two-qubit gates, and we\u2019ll go up to 100 million gates by 2029, and a billion gates by 2033.\u201d<\/p>\n The utility results were achieved on the\u00a0Heron processor<\/a>, which has a \u201cheavy-hex topology.\u201d IBM has since released\u00a0Nighthawk<\/a>, a 120-qubit chip with a square lattice design. \u201cThis chip is able to produce up to 30% more complex quantum circuits than the ones that I described,\u201d Peropadre said. \u201cWe expect that this is going to be like our flagship for achieving quantum advantage this year.\u201d<\/p>\n Nighthawk is available to IBM premium clients and partners in the IBM Quantum Network. Peropadre showed a chart comparing IBM\u2019s fleet to competitors including Rigetti, QuEra, Quantinuum, IQM, and IonQ, noting that \u201call of IBM quantum computers, the entire fleet, is well into what we call the utility region.\u201d<\/p>\n Error correction, which Peropadre described as necessary for \u201ca very robust quantum computer,\u201d is targeted for 2029. Until then, IBM relies on error mitigation techniques. \u201cFor the most part, running GPUs and CPUs. So you already start seeing that picture of quantum is not working in isolation. It has to work orchestrated with classical computing resources.\u201d<\/p>\n What remains uncertain<\/p>\n Hardware alone will not deliver quantum advantage. \u201cWe need to do algorithm discovery,\u201d Peropadre said. \u201cWe need to find more algorithms that really apply to different applications.\u201d<\/p>\n He cited the variational quantum eigensolver, discovered around 2014, as an example: \u201cThat was a real disruption in the field, and everybody started working in variational algorithms. The progress over the years has been slow but steady.\u201d<\/p>\n But the real breakthroughs come from new algorithms entirely. \u201cThe thing that is really disruptive is the discovery of new algorithms. Something that really changed the game in chemistry was finding new algorithms, like the SQD algorithms, sampling-based quantum diagonalisation algorithms, that brought the number of qubits from around 30 to 80.\u201d<\/p>\n The lesson, Peropadre argued, is that access drives discovery: \u201cMany of the algorithms that have been discovered, even in the past, it\u2019s been when scientists had access to computers. So now these are machines that people, the community have access to. People need to start trying their quantum algorithms in these machines.\u201d<\/p>\n IBM has identified four application domains: Hamiltonian simulation (covering \u201cchemistry or material science or how quantum systems evolve\u201d), optimisation (\u201cfrom optimising portfolios in finance\u201d to protein folding, which involves \u201ca massive exponential number of possibilities that a protein has to fold over itself\u201d), machine learning, and differential equations (\u201cthe behaviour of aeroplanes in certain turbulent landscapes\u201d).<\/p>\n Specific applications Peropadre highlighted included pharmaceuticals (\u201chow small molecules have a direct link to a pocket in a target\u201d) and battery development (\u201clithium ion, very fundamental molecules and chemical reactions\u201d).<\/p>\n IBM\u2019s Quantum Network has over 100 active test cases with partners including RIKEN, Oak Ridge National Laboratory, and Boeing. \u201cWe are very aware that quantum advantage is not going to come through IBM alone,\u201d Peropadre said. \u201cWe need our partners and the experts in these different verticals to come and tell us where we need to look for it.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Standing room only as IBM\u2019s Borja Peropadre lays out the roadmap to quantum advantage, and why 2026 could…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":400159,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[49],"tags":[199,79],"class_list":{"0":"post-400158","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-physics","8":"tag-physics","9":"tag-science"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/400158","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=400158"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/400158\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/400159"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=400158"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=400158"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=400158"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}