On Oct. 1, 2020, a Maryland-based quantum computing hardware and software startup called IonQ revealed its next-generation quantum computer system. The new computer will be available for purchase very soon.
Peter Chapman, IonQ CEO & President, said:
In a single generation of hardware, we went from 11 to 32 qubits, and more importantly, improved the fidelity required to use all 32 qubits. Depending on the application, customers will need somewhere between 80 and 150 very high fidelity qubits and logic gates to see the quantum advantage. Our goal is to double or more the number of qubits each year. With two new generations of hardware already in the works, companies not working with quantum now are at risk of falling behind.
Chris Monroe, IonQ Co-Founder & Chief Scientist, added:
The new system we’re deploying today can do things no other quantum computer has been able to achieve, and even more importantly, we know how to continue making these systems much more powerful moving forward. One way is to fix errors through circuit encoding, capitalizing on a recent demonstration of quantum error correction in a nearly identical system. With our new IonQ system, we expect to be able to encode multiple qubits to tolerate errors, the holy grail for scaling quantum computers in the long haul. This encoding requires just 13 qubits to make a near-perfect logical qubit, while in other hardware architectures, it’s estimated to take more than 100,000.
Does this mean the age of quantum computers is finally upon us, as headlines claim? Not really. They are still significantly in their infancy, and, in many ways, conventional computers outperform them by a long stride. Nevertheless, the confident promise of future mega-capabilities fuels an escalating competition between well-established companies like Microsoft, IBM, and Google, and startups like IonQ.
Each company is building it differently. For example, Google and IBM are developing gate-model computers, while D-Wave uses annealer technology, and IonQ uses ion traps. The technology is very new, so nobody knows which method is genuinely best yet.
The different approaches have to do with how qubits are made and manipulated; also, the errors that happen when qubits are used. Some companies think that the best approach to dealing with mistakes is to put more qubits in a machine. IonQ, on the other hand, is developing less error-prone qubits. Taking that approach, the company has had to make machines with fewer qubits.
So, while Google and IBM’s machines have 50 qubits, Ion Q has 32. However, they have reduced the error rate so much that their system boasts 99.9% fidelity. This gives the design a quantum volume of over four million – the highest ever reported. Hence why IonQ claims they have the most powerful quantum computer in the world.
