Quantum-computing technology may not be so futuristic after all, according to IBM

By Britney Nguyen

The company sees ways to integrate quantum processors with CPUs and GPUs in modern supercomputers - years before large-scale quantum computers have their moment

IBM unveiled its new quantum-centric supercomputing blueprint on Thursday.

Practical large-scale quantum computers are still years away, but International Business Machines is betting the underlying technology can be used sooner than that.

IBM (IBM) introduced on Thursday what it called the first reference architecture for "quantum-centric supercomputing," or integrating quantum chips to work alongside central processing units and graphics-processing units in supercomputers.

"It's about how quantum computers can be made a core part of the modern supercomputing stack where we know a lot of the most advanced and challenging problems are being addressed," Jerry Chow, chief technology officer of quantum-centric supercomputing at IBM, told MarketWatch.

Supercomputers, which run on CPUs and GPUs, are currently used for scientific simulations such as weather forecasting and drug discovery.

CPUs calculate sequentially, and GPUs can run those calculations in parallel. But quantum processors allow multiple calculations to happen at one time - and much faster than classical computing chips.

See more: IBM sees a big milestone ahead for quantum computing - and it hinges on these new chips

With IBM's approach, different parts of a problem can be solved using the chip best suited to handle it.

For example, IBM said earlier this month that it used quantum-centric supercomputing to verify the behavior of a new molecule it created alongside researchers at a handful of universities, including Oxford University and ETH Zurich.

IBM is targeting 2029 for fault-tolerant quantum computing - the point at which large-scale quantum computers can be relied on for accurate calculations despite errors in the environment.

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In the near term, Chow said, the blueprint aims to increase the number of use cases for quantum through finding new algorithms, similar to how GPUs were first used for gaming graphics before being leveraged for generative AI.

"By getting it in the right hands and showing how it can work within more traditional computing environments, we're showing that we can have an explosion of new algorithm development that leads to key applications," Chow said.

-Britney Nguyen

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