As much as quantum computers have improved, they are far from taking over from conventional computers. IBM, however, may have made them more practical. The pioneering technology company has found a way to combine a new program execution environment, Qiskit, with a balance of “classical” and quantum computing to deliver a 100-fold speedup for tasks that depend on iterative circuit execution. Calculations that used to take months now will be completed in just a few hours, IBM said.
Qiskit itself allows for more circuits to be executed at a “much faster” rate and can store quantum programs so that other users can run. However, it also uploads programs to conventional hardware sitting next to the quantum machines. This isn’t a real hoax – the move is intended to reduce latency between a user’s computer and the quantum chip.
IBM expects to release Qiskit sometime in 2021. Its program also includes quantum systems that handle a wider range of circuits, and thus a wider range of computational challenges, by 2022. New control systems and libraries in 2023 will help IBM achieve its goal of operating systems with 1,000 or more qubits, bringing the company closer to full quantum supremacy where the technology can handle any computational task.
The company quickly acknowledged that of course all of this is a lot of work and a very far-fetched goal. He compares current quantum technology to the first computers — that is, they required a lot of manual programming and took many years to complete workloads that now seem trivial . Ideally, Qiskit and improved hardware will lead to a day when anyone can use quantum computing.
Information source: engadget.com
