IBM Quantum

In honor of the United Nations International Year of Quantum and #InternationalWomensDay, IBM Quantum is proud to support the launch of the first episode of "Women in Quantum: A Spotlight Series by the International Telecommunication Union." https://ibm.co/4ictMxg Each month, we will highlight inspiring women making significant contributions to quantum computing. This series will feature interviews, personal stories, and insights from women breaking barriers and leading the way in research, technology, and education. In the first episode, we are honored to introduce an incredible panel of speakers: Diya Nair – Global Lead for Outreach and U.K. Ambassador of Girls in Quantum Dr. Stacey Jeffery – Founder at WIQD Dr. Sarah Sheldon – Principal Research Scientist and Senior Manager of Quantum Theory and Capabilities at IBM Quantum Moderated by: Sanskriti Deva – IBM Quantum Product Marketer and Ambassador for SDG #9 Industry and Innovation Watch along to help us celebrate the achievements of women in quantum and inspire the next generation of innovators. Stay tuned for monthly episodes featuring more incredible stories!

Qiskit circuit functions are helping researchers accelerate their experiments and more easily extract useful results from quantum computers. https://ibm.co/41uBYSq On the IBM Quantum Blog this week, we take a look at how real researchers are using the tools IBM has made available through the Qiskit Functions Catalog, particularly the circuit functions developed by our quantum startup partners QEDMA, Q-CTRL, and Algorithmiq. Qiskit circuit functions were created to abstract away the time-and knowledge-intensive tasks that help us get the most out of high-performance quantum hardware—tasks like quantum circuit transpilation and quantum error mitigation. With no need to worry about these essential steps in their quantum computing workflows, these researchers are able to spend more time doing what they do best: developing new use cases and exploring solutions to interesting new problems. As quantum computing technology continues to advance, it’s important that we empower quantum algorithm and application researchers to begin exploring the impact these powerful tools can make in their areas of interest. We won’t progress very fast if using a quantum computer takes years of specialized study. In the blog, we hear from researchers at Deutsches Elektronen-Synchrotron (DESY), North Carolina State University, and Trinity College Dublin about the difference circuit functions have made in their research. Click the link above to learn more about these success stories, and head to the Qiskit Functions Catalog to request free trials of our circuit and application functions: https://ibm.co/3F2T4PM

Join us later today, March 4 2025 at 6PM ET (3PM PT) for a livestream of ‘Betting On Software in the Era of Quantum Utility: The Emerging Ecosystem of Quantum Applications’, on YouTube live from The Montgomery Summit https://ibm.co/4bpcbj4 This panel will discuss the future of useful quantum computing and the progress IBM has made toward making that future a reality. IBM Fellow and VP of IBM Quantum Jay Gambetta will open the talk by highlighting how we're working to extract real value from quantum, and the steps we need to take now to usher in the next quantum revolution. We’re doing our part on this journey by providing the quantum infrastructure and ecosystem needed to make these necessary advancements, and that starts with building upon our best-in-class quantum hardware and software offerings. We’ve partnered with startups to build an application marketplace directly integrated into IBM Quantum Platform—a one-stop shop for third-party tools and services to make algorithm discovery and development easier than ever before. We must continue to build on this collaborative infrastructure, and deeply involve other organizations and startups along the way. If we’re able to do so, we’ll reach quantum advantage much faster than we would alone. Head to the link above at 6PM ET (3PM PT) for the livestream.

Today, IBM and Vodafone announced a collaboration aimed at implementing quantum-safe cryptography across Vodafone Secure Net using IBM Quantum Safe technology. https://ibm.co/3DfNXv8 Vodafone Secure Net is a digital security service that protects millions of users against phishing, malware, and identity thefts on Vodafone’s fixed and mobile networks across Europe. However, future quantum computers may be able to break today's encryption methods, leaving sensitive data unprotected. At this year’s MWC25, IBM and Vodafone showed a proof-of-concept to implement new post-quantum cryptography standards to the existing encryption methods in Vodafone Secure Net in order to defend against these emerging risks. Vodafone was among the first users of the IBM Quantum Safe technology, previously using the technology to identify and inventory cryptography in its network infrastructure and systems. This latest collaboration is an important step forward in the company's quantum-safe journey. Learn more at the release linked above.

We’ve said it before and we’ll say it again—useful quantum computing requires high-performance software. https://ibm.co/3Dc5wwg Here, IBM Fellow and Director of Quantum Systems Jerry M. Chow had the opportunity to share this vision in an ‘Expert Voices’ piece for Science, laying out the requirements for the future of quantum computing. Hardware is valuable, but equally important is high-performance software that is easy to use and integrates classical and quantum processing so the two architectures can work in lockstep. This software must also allow for domain experts and software developers without a quantum background to jump right in to running quantum computational tasks. We’ve done a lot of building on this pathway to useful quantum computing by expanding Qiskit. We’ve made it the most performant and most popular quantum software available. We also released the Qiskit Functions Service in preview, offering a collection of third-party services and workflows directly integrated to make Qiskit easier to use. But the future of quantum computing will not be built by one single company. A collaboration of physicists, engineers, developers, entrepreneurs, government officials, and more is needed to deliver truly useful quantum computing—and the time for that collaboration to begin is now. More at the article linked above.

We’re bringing major upgrades to IBM Quantum Platform, and inviting you to start exploring the early-access preview version of the new Platform today. The new Platform will help us introduce important new features, and opens up Heron QPU access to users on the IBM Quantum Open Plan for the first time. https://ibm.co/4gTmUna As quantum demonstrates its utility and moves closer to computational advantage, we need enterprise-grade cloud services capable of handling the increasingly complex workloads that quantum advantage will require. The upgraded IBM Quantum Platform is an important step in that direction. Early examples of the new features and capabilities this move enables include enhanced data privacy and security features, a streamlined notifications experience, better platform navigation, multiple language options for users who speak languages other than English, and much, much more. You'll find a detailed list covering both the near and long-term benefits of our move to the new IBM Quantum Platform near the end of this week's blog post. IBM Quantum Open Plan and Pay-as-you-go Plan users can get started with the early access Platform today. If your IBM Quantum Platform access falls under a plan administrator (e.g., Premium Plan, Dedicated service, Startup program, etc.), please note that you will receive guided migration support through your administrator in the coming months. In the meantime, you are welcome to create a free Open plan account to explore the new platform. Head over to the IBM Quantum blog for more info and for links to our user migration guides.

I’m excited to share this new work from our IBM Quantum team in collaboration with Oak Ridge National Laboratory. This is a major demonstration of what we mean by realizing useful Quantum-centric supercomputing. Building on the chemistry work developed with RIKEN (https://lnkd.in/eK8jW-Wp) last year, and the previous Krylov demonstration with University of Tokyo (https://lnkd.in/eae_8zGc), the IBM Quantum and ORNL teams developed a quantum algorithm for ground states with convergence guarantees similar to phase estimation, while retaining the error mitigation aspect of sample-based methods. Putting together sample-based approaches and Krylov methods, we call this sample-based Krylov quantum diagonalization (SKQD). The algorithm can be used to compute ground state energies of quantum systems for many lattice models relevant in materials science and high-energy physics. SKQD is demonstrated experimentally on 85 qubits and 6,000 two-qubit gates on IBM quantum processors, against the ground state of the Anderson impurity model, obtaining high accuracies for problem sizes beyond the reach of exact diagonalization. This marks one of the largest implementations of quantum diagonalization to date, and points at how quantum computing, combined with classical computation in quantum-centric supercomputing environments, will enable us to push beyond classical methods for interesting applications. These new results also show again how algorithmic discovery is essential, especially for quantum-centric supercomputing architectures. Classical algorithms for materials science have made an impressive progress in the last decades. However, by thinking of quantum-classical workflows where quantum can deliver a value that cannot be matched by classical, we will move closer to demonstrating quantum advantage. Congratulations again to the team on this achievement. Check out the paper here:?https://lnkd.in/epwCrG5R.

Join us June 16th – 20th, 2025 for the Quantum Algorithms in Pre-Fault Tolerant Hardware Conference in Donostia-San Sebastian, Spain. https://ibm.co/4b8lzYv This conference, organized in collaboration by IBM and the Basque Country Quantum Initiative (BasQ) aims to gather some of the brightest minds in quantum computing to discuss leveraging pre-fault tolerant quantum hardware to tackle complex problems in quantum physics, chemistry, materials science, and beyond. The submission deadline for folks who would like to speak or contribute to the event is March 1, 2025, and the registration deadline for non-contributing attendees is April 1, 2025. Register today at the link above.

You all put our hearts in an excited state. Happy Valentine’s Day from IBM Quantum!

IBM Quantum leads the world in quantum computing. We have the highest-performing quantum computers and we’ve deployed more quantum computing systems than every other quantum outfit combined. We maintain the world’s most popular and?most?built-upon quantum software development platform with Qiskit, and we have the strongest ecosystem of companies advancing?the field of?quantum computing?as a whole. Our achievements require the support of our clients, partners, investors, and the community of people interested in advancing quantum computing. We are excited to have shared these successes with you all at our IBM Investor Day event. You can view the replay of the Investor day presentations online at the link below. (IBM Quantum VP?Jay?Gambetta’s?talk begins at around 1:49:00 in the video):?https://lnkd.in/euAk96k9