IBM now has its quantum chip ready with error mitigation and confirms the date of its great milestone: error correction

IBM has kept its promise. The itinerary that was published in December of last year told us that the Heron platform (5K) would be ready before the end of 2024. equipped with error mitigation. And here we have it. Just a few hours ago this American company has announcedAmong other important news, the quantum hardware that had been planned to be prepared by the end of this year is now available for research projects.

Until now, the most optimistic forecasts invited us to contemplate the possibility that quantum computers equipped with the ability to correct their own errors will arrive during the next decade. These machines will presumably be much more useful than the prototypes currently available because they will be used to solve a much wider range of problems, hence why we usually refer to them as 'quad computers'. 'Fully functional penthouses'.

The Heron quantum processor and Qiskit software have taken a big step forward

The main problem that quantum computers face in the field of error correction is noise, understood as disturbances that can alter the internal state of the cbits and introduce calculation errors. The strategy that many of the research groups that are involved in the development of quantum computers are opting for consists of monitoring the operations carried out by the cbits to identify errors in real time and correct them. . The problem is that from a practical point of view this strategy is very challenging.

However, there is an alternative path. It is known as 'error mitigation', and, very broadly, instead of monitoring in real time what happens in the cbits, it allows them to carry out their calculations even if they have errors and only at the end of the process it is inferred which is the correct result. This technique is already delivering very promising results. In fact, this feature is what allows the Heron quantum processor to outperform the other quantum chips developed by IBM so far.

However, this company has not limited itself to unveiling its new quantum hardware. It has also announced a review of Qiskit, its open source software toolkit designed for programming and developing algorithms for quantum computers. By Jay Gambettavice president of IBM, “advances in our hardware and Qiskit are allowing our users to create new algorithms in which advanced quantum and classical supercomputing resources can be combined to take advantage of their respective strengths.” Sounds good.

Additionally, Matteo Rossi, chief technology officer at Algorithmiq, a company dedicated to the development of quantum software, explains to us a little more about error mitigation: “The Algorithmiq Tensor Network Error Mitigation (TEM) algorithm, available through IBM Qiskit, offers next-generation error mitigation (…) With the recent advances we have made to combine quantum computers with GPU post-processing we are boosting the ability of error mitigation to work with circuits with up to 5,000 intertwined quantum gates (…) This could “open the door to quantum simulations and calculations that were previously limited by noise.”

However, the real surprise awaits us in 2029. If IBM meets its schedule within five years, it will have 'Starling' ready, its first quantum hardware equipped with the ability to correct its own errors. In this case the roadmap clearly indicates that we are talking about correction, and not mitigation. They are big words. This hardware should allow researchers working with it to address problems that current prototypes cannot currently deal with. And finally, in 2033 'Blue Jay' will kick off the massive scaling of IBM's quantum hardware with error correction capabilities.

Imأ،genes | IBM

Mأ،s informaciأ³n | IBM

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