IBM says its new quantum chip can beat regular PCs in two years

IBM has announced a new quantum processor that will allow quantum computers to surpass traditional computers in the next two years, reported Reuters. 

The new quantum processor has been named as Eagle and it has 127 qubits (the basic unit of quantum information). It is a follow up to the 65-qubit based quantum processor named Hummingbird that was launched last year.  

IBM said that it is working on two more processors with an even higher compute power. The chip with 433 qubits will launch in 2022 and will be called Osprey, while the chip with 1,121 qubits will be called Condor and is likely to be released by the end of 2023.  

The Eagle processor will be available on the IBM Cloud to select members of the IBM Quantum Network from next month.  

IBM attributed Eagle's development to a new design that puts the processor’s control components on multiple physical levels. Typically qubits are located on a single layer. 

Unlike regular computing, which runs on the binary system where 0 and 1 exist in separate states, quantum computers use quantum bits or qubits, which can process 1 and 0 simultaneously. This allows them to process data and solve complex problems in a fraction of time traditional computers take.

For instance, in 2019, Google used a quantum computer running on a 54 qubit processor to perform an experimental computation in merely 200 seconds. As per Google's estimates, the world's fastest supercomputer would have taken 10,000 years to perform the same computation.  

IBM has been working on quantum computers for more than a decade and launched its first quantum system with 20 qubits for commercial use in 2019.

Outside of the US, IBM's quantum computing was launched in Germany in 2021.