Strangeworks announces availability of consumption pricing model for Qiskit Runtime service from IBM Quantum
(Strangeworks) Strangeworks, the leading Quantum Service Provider™, announced it is the first IBM business partner to offer consumption-based pricing of IBM hardware beginning with two 27-qubit quantum computers, previously only available to those with the IBM Quantum Premium Plan. Earlier today, IBM Quantum announced and launched a new pricing model (Pay-As-You-Go Plan for Qiskit® Runtime (Beta)[i] on IBM Cloud) to its broader ecosystem and developer community. Qiskit Runtime is IBM’s quantum computing service and programming model for building, optimizing, and executing workloads at scale.
Strangeworks’s and IBM’s relationship began in July of 2021 with the availability of quantum backends of IBM’s Open Plan to Strangeworks users. During the IBM Quantum Summit in November of 2021, Strangeworks joined IBM on stage for their announcement of the expansion of Qiskit Runtime consumption pricing to IBM Cloud. Strangeworks is proud to continue its relationship with IBM by becoming an IBM Embedded Solutions Partner for IBM Cloud access with pay-as-you-go billing for 27-qubit quantum computers.
This collaboration allows Strangeworks customers to focus on their work instead of cloud management and provides access to industry-leading quantum devices with the added flexibility of paying only for resources used. Strangeworks customers can now seamlessly use IBM’s higher qubit count quantum computers as backends in combination with Strangeworks services that are supported by the IBM machines.
An additional benefit of having the service available through IBM Cloud is that it opens the door to Strangeworks’ ecosystem partners building on top of the Qiskit Runtime API and using IBM Cloud’s user-management, billing, and additional ready-made infrastructure.
“We’ve always seen the consumption model as the winner in quantum computing pricing models,” said William Hurley, CEO of Strangeworks. “We are thrilled to support IBM’s commitment to this offering, and are excited at the potential of what this new model will open up to Strangeworks’ own ecosystem and community.”
Sandra K. Helsel, Ph.D. has been researching and reporting on frontier technologies since 1990. She has her Ph.D. from the University of Arizona.
