IBM’s Research Blog Outlines Three Main Research Challenges to Quantum Computing and the Importance of Collaboration within DOE’s Quantum Information Science Centers

(IBM.Research.Blog) The IBM Quantum team envisions a future where devices harnessing the intricacies of atomic behavior unleash the full potential of computation unreachable due to the limits of classical computing hardware. These devices could one day transform industries from healthcare to finance to defense. We think we know the path toward that future—but this blog emphasizes it’s going to take far more than the efforts of a single company or research institution to walk that path.
Three main research challenges come together as focal points for IBM’s collaborations within the DOE’s National Quantum Information Science Centers, which will serve as accelerating testbeds for quantum technology across the country. Our partnership in the Centers highlight best our approach to solve these challenges as a community, in a combined effort with national labs, university labs and industries.
IBM’s blog points out that quantum computing’s groundbreaking computational advances will require large-scale devices that compute without errors, despite the fragility of quantum information—and building such a device is beyond the limits of any one team. It will require a national effort of scientists, engineers, and the workforce supporting them, as well as expertise sharing between industry, national labs, and universities in order to build a robust quantum ecosystem. We think that realizing a fully capable, fault-tolerant quantum computer will take significant investments focused on solving three main research challenges:
Efficient, error-corrected quantum circuits,
Quantum interconnects, and
Hardware-aware applications.
These three main research challenges come together as focal points for our collaborations within the DOE’s National Quantum Information Science Centers, which will serve as accelerating testbeds for quantum technology across the country. Our partnership in the Centers highlight best our approach to solve these challenges as a community, in a combined effort with national labs, university labs and industries.