IBM’s quantum machine pumps up pressure on rivals

IBM is increasing the pressure on Google in the battle to commercialize quantum computing technology.

Quantum computers hold the promise of being able to solve difficult problems from fields such as chemistry and material science that are currently beyond the reach of the most powerful conventional supercomputers. They may also one day render some current encryption techniques obsolete.

IBM said Friday it has created a prototype 50 qubit quantum computer. A machine this size is believed to be close to the threshold at which it could perform tasks beyond the reach of conventional supercomputers — a major milestone in computer science that researchers in the field refer to as “quantum supremacy.”

In a statement, IBM said it “aims to demonstrate capabilities beyond today’s classical systems” with quantum systems this size.

Friday’s announcement puts IBM in a race with Google, which has said that it plans to show a similarly sized machine capable of achieving this milestone by year-end.

Today’s quantum computers remain too small and too error-prone to outperform conventional supercomputers at most tasks, but the technology is advancing rapidly. A number of companies — including IBM, Google, Microsoft, Canada’s D-Wave Systems and Californiabased startup Rigetti Computing — are pushing to create machines that businesses can use.

Jonathan Breeze, a research fellow working on advanced materials at Imperial College London and not affiliated with any of the companies developing quantum computing, said practical applications of quantum computers will depend largely on being able to reduce the error rate in their calculations.