IBM claims to have taken a significant step toward real-world quantum computing. The company debuted Eagle on Monday, claiming it is the first processor of its kind that can't be simulated by a standard supercomputer.
Eagle features 127 qubits, which are quantum computers' information-processing units. According to the company, this is a large enough cluster to execute calculations that ordinary computers can't do in a reasonable amount of time.
"Our first 127-qubit Eagle processor is available as an exploratory system on the IBM Cloud to select members of the IBM Quantum Network," Jerry Chow, the director of IBM's Quantum Hardware System Development unit, told Engadget.
"Exploratory systems are early access to our latest technologies and so we do not guarantee uptime or a particular level of repeatable performance, as measured by quantum volume."
To explain what this implies, IBM claims that it would take more classical bits to simulate Eagle than there are atoms in every human being on the earth. The achievement is credited to a revolutionary architecture that places the processor's control components on numerous physical levels while the qubits are on a single layer, according to IBM. The company said that the design allows for a considerable increase in computing power.
Quantum volume is one aspect of Eagle that the company isn't talking about right now. It's a metric coined by IBM that seeks to quantify the performance of a quantum computer by taking a holistic look at all of its components. It takes into account not only qubits, but also the way they interact with one another. A quantum computer's ability to solve tough tasks is proportional to its quantum volume.
Quantum computers are information processing machines that employ quantum physics phenomena. A bit is a binary representation of information in a traditional computer.
A bit can be a one or a zero. Information is represented in a quantum computer by a quantum bit, or qubit, which can be placed in a quantum state that allows it to represent both zero and one at the same time.
Furthermore, in a traditional computer, each bit in a computer chip operates individually. The qubits of a quantum computer are "entangled" with others in the quantum processor, allowing them to collaborate to find a solution. Quantum computers, in principle, have exponentially more power than regular computers due to these two features.
However, quantum computers have so far been too underpowered-that is, they have too few qubits and those qubits can't stay in a quantum state for long enough-to represent a significant threat to ordinary computers.
It's difficult to say how the Eagle processor compares to what's already out there without knowing the quantum volume.
Starting next month, IBM will make Eagle available to a select group of Quantum Network members.
