IBM makes a triple leap with the Osprey, the world’s new largest quantum computer with 433 qubits

IBM just submitted the new largest quantum computer in the world. Named Osprey and with 433 cubits, it is more than triple what the Eagle had, the most advanced to date presented just a year ago with 127 cubits. It is also more than eight times larger than Sycamore, Google’s quantum computer with 53 qubits.

The race for the best quantum computer is heating up. The Osprey has been presented during the IBM Quantum Summit, the conference of the American company that is held every year and where they show their latest advances. This year they have confirmed the marked map and have shown the details of their latest quantum computer.

As IBM itself describes, this processor “has the potential to execute complex quantum calculations far beyond the computational capacity of any classical computer.” And they leave us a comparison: the number of classical bits that would be necessary to represent a state in the IBM Osprey processor far exceeds the total number of atoms in the known universe.

It doesn’t just upgrade the hardware. In addition to showing off the new quantum computer, IBM has also unveiled a new beta of the Qiskit Runtime, which now allows you to trade speed for reduced errors. IBM hopes this will make it easier to create new applications on quantum systems. A computation totally differentiated from the classic one that requires its own developments.

In addition to this, IBM has shown a new signal control with flexible wiring that provides a 70% increase in cable density and a five-fold reduction in price per line.

Goal: more than 4,000 qubits in 2025. The schedule set is clear and for now IBM is complying. For this 2022 it has been 433 qubits, but for next year nothing more and nothing less than a quantum computer of 1,121 qubits is planned, being the first to overcome the barrier of a thousand qubits, unless another company comes forward. By 2025, IBM is set to have a system above 4,000 qubits, thus surpassing the capabilities of current electronic systems.

Towards the modular quantum computer. After the quantum computer with more than 1,000 qubits, IBM proposes a system based on modules. It is what they call IBM Quantym System Twoy will allow modules to be connected to each other in order to create larger quantum computers. This new system would be ready by the end of 2023 and by connecting three of the future quantum computers they could obtain a system of up to 16,632 qubits.

More than 200 companies already use IBM quantum computers. IBM has a network of 20 quantum computers of varying size. The company allows external companies to take advantage of this infrastructure and this year they report that they have already exceeded 200 companies and 450,000 users. Among the newcomers are companies such as Bosch or Vodafone, the latter is researching quantum communications and cryptography.

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