IBM, a global technology company, is leaping from its 433-qubit quantum processor announced last year to a 100,000-qubit quantum computer in the next 10 years.

“We recognize how challenging it will be to build a 100,000-qubit system,” IBM said in a statement. “But we see the path before us — we have our list of known knowns and known unknowns. And if unforeseen challenges arise, we as an industry should be eager to take them on.”

Last year, IBM laid out the foundation for scaling up quantum computers. To achieve this, the company is focusing on four areas: quantum communication, middleware for quantum, quantum algorithms and error correction (capable of using multiple quantum processors and quantum communication), and components with the necessary supply chain.

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This gargantuan task cannot be done with one company alone, that is why IBM is sponsoring the research of the University of Tokyo and the University of Chicago.

Laying the groundwork for quantum computing

The University of Tokyo leads the Quantum Innovation Initiative Consortium (QIIC) with members from the academe, government, and IT industry. For the 100,000-qubit quantum computer, the university will focus its research on quantum algorithms as well as build the supply chain around new components required for such a large system including cryogenics, control electronics, and more.

The University of Chicago will be improving middleware for quantum, adding serverless quantum execution and bring quantum communication to quantum computation, with classical and quantum parallelization plus quantum networks.

The university’s Chicago Quantum Exchange (CQE) leads in quantum and quantum communication. The CQE operates a 124-mile quantum network over which to study long-range quantum communication. Many of the University of Chicago’s software techniques have helped provide structure to quantum software and influenced IBM’s and other industry middleware.

“At IBM, we’ll continue following our development roadmap to realize quantum-centric supercomputing, while enabling the community to pursue progressive performance improvements,” the company said. “It means finding quantum advantages over classical processors, while treating quantum as one piece of a broader HPC paradigm with classical and quantum working as one computational unit. And with this holistic approach, plus our push toward the 100,000-qubit mark, we’re going to bring useful quantum computing to the world, together.”