IBM just took a 'significant' step toward useful quantum computing
The quantum computer will reside in IBM's new quantum data center in upstate New York and is expected to perform 20,000 more operations than today's quantum computers, the company said in its announcement Tuesday.
Starling will be 'fault tolerant,' IBM said, meaning it would be able to perform quantum operations for things like drug discovery, supply chain optimization, semiconductor design, and financial risk analyses without the errors that plague quantum computers today and make them less useful than traditional computers.
The news comes a day after IBM stock hit an all-time high of $273.27 Monday. Shares are up more than 60% over the past year, more than the S&P 500's (^GSPC) roughly 12% gain.
While IBM has been involved in the quantum computing space since 1981, Big Tech companies such as Amazon (AMZN), Google (GOOG), and Microsoft (MSFT) have been working to gain a foothold in the burgeoning market, as well as a plethora of smaller quantum companies like D-Wave (QBTS) and IonQ (IONQ).
Microsoft and Amazon unveiled new quantum computing chips in February. Google released a quantum computing chip called Willow in December, saying the technology "paves the way to a useful, large-scale quantum computer." The announcement sent shares of its parent company, Alphabet, up 5% the same day.
Once developed, useful quantum computers such as Starling would solve problems that would take 'classical' computers billions of years.
Both AI and traditional computers are 'classical' computers that rely on linear algebra, whereas quantum computers rely on quantum mechanics and advanced mathematics, making them more useful for solving certain problems in fields such as cybersecurity, cryptography, and chemistry.
IDC quantum analyst Heather West said IBM's Starling is a 'significant' development for the industry, which she expects to grow to $8.6 billion by 2028.
'We've seen these incremental steps towards being able to deliver a scaled quantum computing system,' IDC analyst Heather West told Yahoo Finance in an interview. 'We're finally moving from just small steps — [a] small finding here, a small engineering breakthrough there — and now putting it all together to get this larger system, Starling.'
Unlike traditional computers that use bits or series of 1s and 0s, quantum machines use qubits. Qubits are a function of quantum mechanics and, rather than being expressed as a 1 or 0, can exist as both at the same time, allowing for far more processing capabilities. But qubits are fragile and prone to producing errors. Worse, the more qubits used in an equation, the more errors they introduce.
Quantum computers use error correction codes to detect and correct their errors.
Starling will have the ability to run large-scale quantum operations without error, IBM said, because the company has devised a new error correction code. The company says this will allow it to scale the computers significantly without making them less accurate.
Google also said it achieved this feat with its Willow chip in late 2024. Google uses an error correction code called 'surface code,' but it requires the company to use tons of qubits to perform quantum operations, taking up more physical space. IBM will use a code called qLDPC requiring its quantum computers to use fewer qubits.
'[Using qLDPC] allows error correction in a much faster, much more robust way so that you can scale the system … quite a bit better, actually, than you could before,' Gartner analyst Mark Horvath told Yahoo Finance.
'Surface code and qLDPC are kind of doing the same thing with error correction. It's just that qLDPC does it a lot more efficiently,' he explained.
'This will be a real advantage,' Horvath continued. 'Everybody else is going to have to license that technology if they want to use it or try to invent it on their own, which would be expensive."
Meanwhile, Horvath expects 'useful' quantum computers will arrive within the next five years.
Tech CEOs have previously projected longer timelines. Nvidia (NVDA) CEO Jensen Huang said in January that useful quantum computing was decades away, which sent quantum stocks tumbling. Huang later walked back his comments during Nvidia's 'Quantum Day" in March.
Laura Bratton is a reporter for Yahoo Finance. Follow her on Bluesky @laurabratton.bsky.social. Email her at laura.bratton@yahooinc.com.
Daniel Howley contributed reporting.
Try Our AI Features
Explore what Daily8 AI can do for you:
Comments
No comments yet...
Related Articles
Yahoo
an hour ago
- Yahoo
The S&P 500 Has Reached an All-Time High: Should You Invest Now or Wait for a Correction?
Key Points Market indexes have been reaching new heights, and right now is an incredibly expensive time to buy. Some investors are worried a correction or recession may be looming, making it smarter to wait. However, history suggests that there's never necessarily a bad time to invest. 10 stocks we like better than S&P 500 Index › The S&P 500 (SNPINDEX: ^GSPC) has been breaking records over the last few weeks, officially reaching a new all-time high in July. As of this writing on Aug. 1, it's up by about 25% from its low point in April. However, not everyone is optimistic about the market right now. In fact, one-third of U.S. investors say they are feeling "bearish" about where stocks will be in the next six months, according to the most recent weekly survey from the American Association of Individual Investors. With stock prices near record-breaking highs, some investors may be tempted to wait until the next downturn to buy at a discount. Here's what history says about whether you should buy now or hold off. Is it safe to invest now? Nobody can predict where stocks will be a few months or a year from now, and new policies out of Washington could change things on a dime. However, several scenarios are possible. For one, stock prices could continue soaring like they have over the past few months. If that happens, right now would be a fantastic time to buy to see immediate gains. Scenario two is that the market takes a sharp turn for the worse, like it did earlier this year amid tariff uncertainty. Between February and April, the S&P 500 fell by close to 20%, leaving many investors panicked and eager to sell. But those who stayed the course and held their investments reaped the rewards when the market quickly rebounded. A similar situation played out in March 2020, when the S&P 500 experienced one of the fastest crashes in history at the start of the pandemic. The short term was rough, but the S&P 500 has since earned total returns of nearly 112%. The third scenario may be the one that concerns investors the most: a prolonged recession. But even if that is on the horizon, investing at record-high prices doesn't necessarily mean you'll lose money. A market downturn may result in your portfolio losing value. But if you hold your investments until the rebound without selling, you likely won't experience any actual losses. Say, for example, you invested in an S&P 500 index fund in December 2007. The market was reaching record highs at the time, but it was about to slip into the Great Recession, which would last until 2009. In that time, your investment would have plunged by more than 50%. Selling at any point during that recession could have locked in significant losses, since you would have likely been selling your investments for far less than what you paid for them. However, if you simply stayed in the market, you would have earned total returns of around 75% after 10 years and 312% by today -- more than quadrupling your money. In other words, even if you had invested at the seemingly worst possible moment -- at record-high prices immediately before one of the most severe recessions in U.S. history -- you would still have made a significant amount of money over time. Now, could you have earned more if you had waited until the market was at its lowest point to buy? Definitely. But hindsight is 20/20, and nobody knows when the next correction or bear market will begin. Timing the market accurately is next to impossible, and if your timing is even slightly off, you could potentially lose a lot of money. Rather than waiting for a chance to "buy the dip," it's often wiser to invest consistently. You can always increase the amount you invest during the next slump, when stocks are at a discount. But in the meantime, continuing to buy can ensure you're not missing out on immediate gains if stock prices stay on the rise. One major caveat to remember The key to ensuring your portfolio survives a downturn is to only invest in long-term quality stocks. Sometimes weak companies can thrive in the short term, earning exponential growth in a matter of months. But those investments are far less likely to pull through tough economic times. Healthy companies with strong business foundations have a much better chance of seeing long-term growth despite short-term hiccups. When a company has a solid competitive advantage, a competent leadership team, robust financials, and a long-term plan for the future, it's much more likely to survive even the worst recessions or bear markets. The most important thing you can do right now, then, is double-check that every stock in your portfolio deserves to be there. Once you're certain that all of your investments have healthy fundamentals, you can rest easier knowing that you're well prepared for whatever may lie ahead. Should you buy stock in S&P 500 Index right now? Before you buy stock in S&P 500 Index, consider this: The Motley Fool Stock Advisor analyst team just identified what they believe are the for investors to buy now… and S&P 500 Index wasn't one of them. The 10 stocks that made the cut could produce monster returns in the coming years. Consider when Netflix made this list on December 17, 2004... if you invested $1,000 at the time of our recommendation, you'd have $624,823!* Or when Nvidia made this list on April 15, 2005... if you invested $1,000 at the time of our recommendation, you'd have $1,064,820!* Now, it's worth noting Stock Advisor's total average return is 1,019% — a market-crushing outperformance compared to 178% for the S&P 500. Don't miss out on the latest top 10 list, available when you join Stock Advisor. See the 10 stocks » *Stock Advisor returns as of July 29, 2025 Katie Brockman has no position in any of the stocks mentioned. The Motley Fool has no position in any of the stocks mentioned. The Motley Fool has a disclosure policy. The S&P 500 Has Reached an All-Time High: Should You Invest Now or Wait for a Correction? was originally published by The Motley Fool Error in retrieving data Sign in to access your portfolio Error in retrieving data Error in retrieving data Error in retrieving data Error in retrieving data
Yahoo
an hour ago
- Yahoo
Is Apple getting ready to launch a PlayStation and Xbox competitor?
The Apple TV is probably my favorite device that Apple makes. While the Apple TV app is in dire need of some basic improvements, the hardware box itself is a standout—especially compared to competitors like Amazon's Fire TV and Roku's streaming devices. This is largely thanks to the stellar Siri Remote, which makes navigating the device with your fingers or voice a cinch, and the powerful Apple silicon chip inside that makes the Apple TV's operating system, tvOS, run buttery smooth. Other countries are stepping up after Trump pulled the U.S. out of the climate fight Emotionally intelligent people use the 2-week rule to motivate themselves and reach their biggest goals Exclusive: Google is indexing ChatGPT conversations, potentially exposing sensitive user data However, when it comes to being a device meant to sit at the center of your living room as an all-encompassing entertainment hub, the Apple TV is lacking in one big department: gaming. The Apple TV is technically a gaming console, since it can play rudimentary games and supports third-party console controllers. But no one is likely to replace their PlayStation or Xbox with one any time soon, because the current Apple TV lacks the processing power to run console-quality games. Yet perhaps that could be changing. Recently, I've noticed that Apple has been making moves that suggest the company may be on the cusp of turning the Apple TV into a full-blown PlayStation and Xbox competitor. Doing so would open up another potential billion-dollar revenue stream for the company. The new Apple Games app is currently MIA from tvOS 26 At Apple's Worldwide Developers Conference (WWDC) this year, the company unveiled a new cross-device app called Apple Games. The app acts as a central hub and launcher for all the games you've ever bought on Apple's App Store or have access to via the company's Apple Arcade subscription service. The Apple Games app also gives you quick access to game events and challenges, and helps you discover new games to play and see what games your friends are playing. In other words, the new Apple Games app is similar to the PlayStation 5 Game Hub and the Xbox Dashboard—the interfaces on the consoles that significantly differentiate the living room gaming experience from PCs. Apple announced that Apple Games is coming to the iPhone, iPad, and Mac with iOS 26, iPadOS 26, and macOS 26 this fall. But the new app is conspicuously absent from the Apple TV's next operating system, tvOS 26, which also ships this fall. This is a notable omission, especially considering that Apple markets its Apple Arcade gaming service as a core feature of the Apple TV experience. It also offers thousands of mobile-level games through the tvOS App Store. The more I think about the Apple Games omission from tvOS 26, the more it makes sense—if Apple is set to turn the Apple TV into a true gaming console but doesn't want anyone to know it yet. The next Apple TV is rumored to have two key hardware improvements essential to top-line gaming consoles Apple doesn't update the Apple TV as often as it does iPhones or even its iPads. Typically, years pass between Apple TV updates. The most recent Apple TV, the Apple TV 4K, was last updated in November 2022, nearly three years ago. That means it's ripe for an update this year. Rumors suggest that a new Apple TV is indeed coming later this year and that it will feature two significant hardware upgrades—ones that would enable it to become a true gaming console. The first is an updated chipset. The current Apple TV 4K features the Apple A15 Bionic chip, the same one found in the iPhone 13 from 2021. Most people expect the next Apple TV to get a significant upgrade—perhaps to the A18 or A18 Pro, found in the current iPhone 16 and iPhone 16 Pro series, or perhaps even the unreleased A19 chip, which will go into this year's iPhone 17 series. It's also possible Apple could put the M1 or M2 chip, previously found in Macs and iPads, into the new Apple TV. This jump from the A15 to the A18, A19, M1, or M2 would give the Apple TV the performance boost it needs to run AAA console games, such as the Resident Evil series from Capcom, which are currently capable of running (with controller support, no less) on the iPhone 15 Pro, thanks to its A17 Pro chip. Another upgrade the next Apple TV is expected to get is a new Apple-designed Wi-Fi and Bluetooth chipset that will support the Wi-Fi 7 standard (via MacRumors). This standard offers lower latency and faster Wi-Fi speeds than the current Wi-Fi 6 standard—something critical for gaming consoles and the bandwidth-hungry games that stream to them. The leading games console, the PlayStation 5 Pro, currently offers Wi-Fi 7 support. In other words, the hardware components Apple needs to turn the next Apple TV into a PlayStation and Xbox competitor are all in the pipeline. And, increasingly, so is something else the Apple TV would need to become a true gaming console: increasing commitment to Apple's platforms from major games studios. More AAA games are hitting the Mac—and iPhone—than ever before In the video game industry, the top games are known as AAA (triple-A) titles. These are the games with the most advanced graphics and the biggest budgets, and are frequently the highlights of the console gaming experience. Historically, AAA game developers have shied away from releasing their major titles on the Mac (the Apple device with the hardware power most comparable to professional gaming consoles). But in the past year, that's changed a lot, thanks to Apple's move to make game development on the Mac easier and more cost-effective than ever, thanks to tools like the company's Game Porting Toolkit 3 and the hardware-accelerated graphics API, Metal 4, which makes graphics-intensive games look better on Mac and iPhone. Considering Apple devices are more popular than ever, game studios stand to financially benefit by bringing their biggest titles to Apple's platforms and their millions of users. In July alone, two major AAA titles made their debut on the Mac: CD Projekt Red's Cyberpunk 2077: Ultimate and Deep Silver's Dead Island 2. Other major AAA titles have also been released on the Mac over the past few years, including Ubisoft's Assassin's Creed: Shadows and Prince of Persia: The Lost Crown, Remedy's Control Ultimate Edition, Kojima Productions' Death Stranding Director's Cut, Round 8 Studio's Lies of P, 11 Bit Studios' Frostpunk 2, and Capcom's Resident Evil series remastered editions. Additionally, more AAA titles are coming to the Mac this year, including IO Interactive's Hitman World of Assassination, InZOI Studio's InZOI, and Pearl Abyss' Crimson Desert. Most of these games require an M1 series chip or later, found in the company's Apple Silicon Macs released since 2020. Some, like the Resident Evil series, can even run on the A17 Pro and later, first introduced in 2023. Apple's current A18 Pro is roughly equivalent to the M1 in terms of performance, and if Apple puts it, the M1 or M2, or the upcoming A19 Pro, inside the next Apple TV, as expected, there is no reason these AAA games that currently run on the Mac couldn't run on the new Apple TV. And if that happens, the Apple TV becomes a professional-level gaming console. Turning the Apple TV into a gaming console makes sense for Apple's ecosystem and the company's bottom line When Apple announced the upcoming Apple Games app for all its devices except the Apple TV, it stood out as a glaring hole in the company's lineup, especially since Apple Games is a natural fit for the Apple TV. But when you take in the odd omission, along with recent rumors that the next Apple TV is set to get powerful new CPU and wireless chipsets, and the flood of new AAA titles hitting the Mac and iPhone this year, things start to look a lot clearer. Yet something else leads me to believe that Apple could be turning the Apple TV into a gaming console this year: the company's history of being unwilling to let software announcements spoil new hardware features. In the past, Apple has withheld software announcements at WWDC to avoid revealing upcoming hardware improvements to its devices. The AAA titles available on the Mac appear in Apple Games on the macOS 26 beta. If Apple had previewed Apple Games on the tvOS 26 beta, Mac games that run on the new unreleased Apple TV, including these AAA titles, might have also shown there. That would spoil a major, as-yet-unannounced feature for the as-yet-unannounced Apple TV. Of course, all this is just conjecture on my part. Still, all the signs seem to be pointing to Apple TV becoming a true gaming console. This would make a lot of business sense for Apple. At price points of $129 or $149, depending on whether you want more storage and an ethernet connection, the current Apple TV 4K is much more expensive than such competitors as the Roku Streaming Stick 4K ($49), the Roku Ultra ($99), and the Amazon Fire TV Stick 4K ($49). However, if Apple gives the new Apple TV gaming console capabilities, the current $129/$149 price suddenly looks like a bargain. A triple-A gaming experience on the Apple TV would be a unique selling point that Roku or Amazon couldn't compete with. It could also give Apple a major new revenue stream in the form of 30% App Store commissions on AAA titles sold through the tvOS App Store. As of 2024, the global AAA gaming market is valued at approximately $75 billion annually, according to a July 2025 Business Research Insights report. It's expected to grow to nearly $108 billion by 2033. But most of all, a new Apple TV with console gaming capabilities would further solidify the device as the digital heart of the living room and smart home, giving users another reason to stay within Apple's ecosystem, both inside and outside the house—an ancillary benefit Apple likely finds invaluable. This post originally appeared at to get the Fast Company newsletter:
Business Insider
an hour ago
- Business Insider
Berkshire Hathaway Sells $1.2 Billion in VeriSign, Takes $5 Billion Impairment on Kraft Heinz
Berkshire Hathaway (BRK.A) (BRK.B) reported a $1.21 billion sale of VeriSign (VRSN) stock in a recent filing with the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission. The transaction, dated July 30, involved the sale of 4.3 million shares. The move was made through a Berkshire subsidiary, Government Employees Insurance Company. The holding now stands at 8 million shares, with a smaller portion held by pension plans of other Berkshire units. Elevate Your Investing Strategy: Take advantage of TipRanks Premium at 50% off! Unlock powerful investing tools, advanced data, and expert analyst insights to help you invest with confidence. VeriSign shares have dropped 8.2% over the past month, trailing the broader market. The timing of the sale signals a strategic pullback from a position Berkshire has held for years. Warren Buffett is the controlling stockholder of Berkshire Hathaway but disclaims any beneficial ownership beyond his economic interest in these securities. Berkshire's $5 Billion Impairment in KHC In other news, Berkshire recorded a $5 billion impairment on its stake in Kraft Heinz (KHC) during the second quarter. The company cut the carrying value of its 27.4% stake to $8.4 billion, down from $13.5 billion at the end of the first quarter. The write-down reduced Berkshire's net earnings after taxes by $3.8 billion. Kraft Heinz has lagged peers in performance and is reportedly reviewing strategic options, including a breakup. This is the second impairment tied to Kraft Heinz since 2019. Two Berkshire-appointed board members resigned from the company in May. The move aligns with broader changes underway at Berkshire Hathaway as it prepares for a leadership transition. Earnings Slide, Trade Risks Mount, Leadership Shift in Focus Both developments occurred while Berkshire reported its Q2 earnings. Operating earnings for Berkshire Hathaway came in at $11.2 billion, a 4% year-over-year decline. Net income fell to $12.4 billion from $30.4 billion in the same period last year. The drop reflects the Kraft Heinz impairment and smaller investment gains compared to 2024. Berkshire ended the period with $344 billion in cash and Treasury holdings, slightly down from March levels. The company's cash position remains elevated despite a volatile market. Looking ahead, Berkshire warned of uncertainty tied to global trade and tariffs. It cited increased risks from U.S. policy changes and their potential impact on operations and equity holdings. Leadership changes are also on the horizon. Greg Abel will take over as chief executive in January 2026. Warren Buffett will stay on as chairman of the board. Shares of Berkshire Hathaway are down 12% since Buffett announced his succession plan. The S&P 500 has gained 10% over the same span. Is BRK.B Stock a Good Buy?
