Latest news with #JayGambetta
Yahoo
a day ago
- Business
- Yahoo
IBM, Google claim quantum computers are almost here after major breakthroughs: ‘It doesn't feel like a dream anymore'
The decades-long quest to create a practical quantum computer is accelerating as major tech companies say they are closing in on designs that could scale from small lab experiments to full working systems within just a few years. IBM laid out a detailed plan for a large-scale machine in June, filling in gaps from earlier concepts and declaring it was on track to build one by the end of the decade. 'It doesn't feel like a dream anymore,' Jay Gambetta, head of IBM's quantum initiative, told Financial Times. 'I really do feel like we've cracked the code and we'll be able to build this machine by the end of the decade.' Google, which cleared one of the toughest technical obstacles late last year, says it is also confident it can produce an industrial-scale system within that time frame, while Amazon Web Services cautions that it could still take 15 to 30 years before such machines are truly useful. Quantum computing is a new kind of computing that doesn't just think in 0s and 1s like today's computers. Instead, it uses qubits — tiny quantum bits — that can be 0, 1, or both at the same time. This lets quantum computers explore many possibilities at once and find answers to certain complex problems much faster than normal computers. Quantum computing could speed up the discovery of new drugs and treatments, make artificial intelligence systems faster and more capable and improve the accuracy of market predictions and fraud detection in finance. It could also dramatically improve efficiency in areas like traffic routing, shipping, energy grids and supply chains while driving green innovation by helping design better batteries, cleaner energy systems and more sustainable technologies. But scaling them up from fewer than 200 qubits — the quantum version of a computing bit — to over 1 million will require overcoming formidable engineering challenges. Qubits are inherently unstable, maintaining their special quantum states for only fractions of a second, and adding more of them can create interference that scrambles calculations. Even if the fundamental physics problems are solved, the industry still faces the task of industrializing quantum technology. This means building chips that can house large numbers of qubits, and developing much bigger refrigeration units to keep the systems at near absolute zero. Systems using superconducting qubits, like those from IBM and Google, have made some of the fastest progress but require extreme cooling and are difficult to control. Meanwhile, some companies are betting on radically new qubit designs. Amazon and Microsoft claim to have harnessed a new state of matter to produce more reliable components, although these are still in early development. 'Just because it's hard, doesn't mean it can't be done,' Mark Horvath, an analyst at Gartner, told FT.
New York Post
3 days ago
- Business
- New York Post
IBM, Google claim quantum computers are almost here after major breakthroughs: ‘It doesn't feel like a dream anymore'
The decades-long quest to create a practical quantum computer is accelerating as major tech companies say they are closing in on designs that could scale from small lab experiments to full working systems within just a few years. IBM laid out a detailed plan for a large-scale machine in June, filling in gaps from earlier concepts and declaring it was on track to build one by the end of the decade. 'It doesn't feel like a dream anymore,' Jay Gambetta, head of IBM's quantum initiative, told Financial Times. Advertisement 4 IBM's Quantum System Two, part of its push to build a million-qubit machine by the end of the decade. AFP via Getty Images 'I really do feel like we've cracked the code and we'll be able to build this machine by the end of the decade.' Google, which cleared one of the toughest technical obstacles late last year, says it is also confident it can produce an industrial-scale system within that time frame, while Amazon Web Services cautions that it could still take 15 to 30 years before such machines are truly useful. Advertisement Quantum computing is a new kind of computing that doesn't just think in 0s and 1s like today's computers. Instead, it uses qubits — tiny quantum bits — that can be 0, 1, or both at the same time. This lets quantum computers explore many possibilities at once and find answers to certain complex problems much faster than normal computers. 4 IBM headquarters in Armonk, NY, where the company leads development of its quantum computing research. Askar – Advertisement Quantum computing could speed up the discovery of new drugs and treatments, make artificial intelligence systems faster and more capable and improve the accuracy of market predictions and fraud detection in finance. It could also dramatically improve efficiency in areas like traffic routing, shipping, energy grids and supply chains while driving green innovation by helping design better batteries, cleaner energy systems and more sustainable technologies. But scaling them up from fewer than 200 qubits — the quantum version of a computing bit — to over 1 million will require overcoming formidable engineering challenges. 4 Google's Mountain View campus, home to its Quantum AI division pursuing a surface-code design to reach industrial-scale systems. Sundry Photography – Advertisement Qubits are inherently unstable, maintaining their special quantum states for only fractions of a second, and adding more of them can create interference that scrambles calculations. Even if the fundamental physics problems are solved, the industry still faces the task of industrializing quantum technology. This means building chips that can house large numbers of qubits, and developing much bigger refrigeration units to keep the systems at near absolute zero. 4 Quantum computing could speed up the discovery of new drugs and treatments, make artificial intelligence systems faster and more capable and improve the accuracy of market predictions. AFP via Getty Images Systems using superconducting qubits, like those from IBM and Google, have made some of the fastest progress but require extreme cooling and are difficult to control. Meanwhile, some companies are betting on radically new qubit designs. Amazon and Microsoft claim to have harnessed a new state of matter to produce more reliable components, although these are still in early development. 'Just because it's hard, doesn't mean it can't be done,' Mark Horvath, an analyst at Gartner, told FT.
Yahoo
01-07-2025
- Business
- Yahoo
Is Crypto Ready for Q-Day?
Are you ready for Q-Day? Do you even know what Q-Day is? If you don't, you're sleepwalking into a digital apocalypse that's not coming—it's already here. Q-Day isn't some distant theoretical event. It's the moment quantum computing shatters every lock, breaks every code, and renders every secret naked. While your most powerful supercomputer would need billions of years to crack modern encryption that currently secures crypto wallets, blockchains, digital banking assets, and WhatsApp chats, a quantum computer could do it over lunch. Every "secure" transaction, every "private" communication, every "protected" system becomes an open book. As Jay Gambetta, Vice President of IBM Quantum, warns: "The quantum threat isn't coming—it's here. Nation-states are harvesting encrypted data TODAY, betting they'll decrypt it tomorrow. If you're not quantum-safe now, you're already compromised." Let me be brutally clear: whether Q-Day arrives in one year, two years, or five years is completely irrelevant. Why? Because of "Harvest Now, Decrypt Later" attacks. Right now, as you read this, malicious nation states and criminal actors are vacuuming up encrypted data including medical records, financial transactions, state secrets, and your personal communications. They can't read it today, but they're betting on quantum to unlock it tomorrow. Computer scientist Deborah Frincke from Sandia National Laboratories doesn't mince words: "Pretty much anything that says a person is who they say they are is underpinned by encryption. Some of the most sensitive and valuable infrastructure that we have would be open to somebody coming in and pretending to be the rightful owner and issuing commands to shut down networks, influence the energy grid, or create financial disruption." In May 2025, BlackRock, the world's largest asset manager with $11.6 trillion under management, did something unprecedented. They added quantum computing as a critical risk warning to their Bitcoin ETF filing, warning that quantum advances could "undermine the viability" of cryptographic algorithms used not just in Bitcoin but across the entire global tech stack. Researchers warn that 4 million bitcoin—roughly 25% of all usable BTC—could be stolen once quantum computers advance enough to break their encryption. Leading quantum expert. It's not just Bitcoin. Ethereum and most blockchains today rely on Elliptic Curve Cryptography, and quantum will shatter that. Experts predict that Q-Day will come within the next five-to-seven years, but it could be sooner. Quantum is coming for bitcoin like meteors came for the dinosaurs. Ethereum co-founder Vitalik Buterin has already proposed emergency hard-fork solutions for when quantum computers crack Ethereum accounts. The Ethereum blockchain would need to be paused for an unknown time until it's restored to a new quantum-resistant blockchain, a process that could take years. Behind closed doors at private crypto conferences, influential cryptographers and business leaders are concerned about a potential catastrophe where a computer strong enough to reverse engineer wallets' private keys could flood exchanges with ancient Bitcoin, sending prices spiraling. This isn't about losing your Netflix password. This is about the complete collapse of digital trust across Bitcoin wallets, Ethereum smart contracts, DeFi protocols, banking systems, power grids, military communications, healthcare records, and government secrets. By leveraging its computational power, a quantum miner could consistently solve the mathematical puzzles required to add new blocks to the blockchain, transforming mining from a decentralized global industry into an oligopoly controlled by quantum-capable entities. Some optimists say we have until 2030 before quantum computers can break encryption. They're missing the point entirely. The damage is being done today. Every piece of data transmitted now is a future casualty. According to a December 2023 Reuters report, Tilo Kunz of cybersecurity firm Quantum Defen5e told Defense Information Systems Agency officials that Q-day could come as soon as 2025. Google Quantum AI has already lowered the barrier to breaking widely used RSA-2048 encryption to fewer than one million qubits, dramatically reducing the resources needed for crypto-breaking quantum attacks. Forget patches, updates, or hoping someone else will solve this. Quantum resistance must be built into the foundation, not bolted on as an afterthought. We need post-quantum cryptography that can withstand both classical and quantum attacks, quantum-resistant digital signatures using hash-based and lattice-based cryptography, complete blockchain infrastructure overhauls, immediate migration from vulnerable crypto addresses, and action now, not committees discussing action later. QRL's Iain Wood warns: "It is now no longer controversial to say that all blockchains that exist by 2035 will have to be post-quantum secure." Researchers at the University of Kent say that upgrading to post-quantum crypto-systems could take 75 days of downtime for Bitcoin, or over 300 days if the network operated at 75% capacity. Think about what that means for a trillion-dollar asset class. Q-Day isn't a future problem—it's a present crisis. While everyone's chasing AI dreams, the quantum nightmare is unfolding. The harvest is happening now. The decryption is coming. 2025 is probably our last chance to start migration to post-quantum cryptography before we are all undone by cryptographically relevant quantum computers. Stop asking when Q-Day will arrive. It's here. The only question is: will you be ready, or will you be roadkill on the quantum highway? In the quantum age, there are only two types of data: quantum-safe and future-compromised. For crypto holders, there are only two types of digital assets: post-quantum secured and future-worthless. Your Bitcoin, your Ethereum, your entire crypto portfolio hangs in the balance. The quantum clock is ticking, and every second you wait is another step toward total cryptographic annihilation. 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
25-06-2025
- Science
- Yahoo
IBM plans to build first-of-its-kind quantum computer by 2029 after 'solving key bottleneck'
When you buy through links on our articles, Future and its syndication partners may earn a commission. IBM scientists say they have solved the biggest bottleneck in quantum computing and plan to launch the world's first large-scale, fault-tolerant machine by 2029. The new research demonstrates new error-correction techniques that the scientists say will lead to a system 20,000 times more powerful than any quantum computer in existence today. In two new studies uploaded June 2 and June 3 to the preprint arXiv server, the researchers revealed new error mitigation and correction techniques that sufficiently handle these errors and allow for the scaling of hardware nine times more efficiently than previously possible. The new system, called "Starling," will use 200 logical qubits — made up of roughly 10,000 physical qubits. This will be followed by a machine called "Blue Jay," which will use 2,000 logical qubits, in 2033. The new research, which has not yet been peer-reviewed, describes IBM's quantum low-density parity check (LDPC) codes — a novel fault-tolerance paradigm that researchers say will allow quantum computer hardware to scale beyond previous limitations. "The science has been solved" for expanded fault-tolerant quantum computing, Jay Gambetta, IBM vice president of quantum operations, told Live Science. This means that scaling up quantum computers is now just an engineering challenge, rather than a scientific hurdle, Gambetta added. Related: Google's 'Willow' quantum chip has solved a problem that would have taken the best supercomputer a quadrillion times the age of the universe to crack While quantum computers exist today, they're only capable of outpacing classical computer systems (those using binary calculations) on bespoke problems that are designed only to test their potential. One of the largest hurdles to quantum supremacy, or quantum advantage, has been in scaling up quantum processing units (QPUs). As scientists add more qubits to processors, the errors in calculations performed by QPUs add up. This is because qubits are inherently "noisy" and errors occur more frequently than in classical bits. For this reason, research in the field has largely centered on quantum error-correction (QEC). Error correction is a foundational challenge for all computing systems. In classical computers, binary bits can accidentally flip from a one to a zero and vice versa. These errors can compound and render calculations incomplete or cause them to fail entirely. The qubits used to conduct quantum calculations are far more susceptible to errors than their classical counterparts due to the added complexity of quantum mechanics. Unlike binary bits, qubits carry extra "phase information." While this enables them to perform computations using quantum information, it also makes the task of error correction much more difficult. Until now, scientists were unsure exactly how to scale quantum computers from the few hundred qubits used by today's models to the hundreds of millions they theoretically need to make them generally useful. But the development of LDPC and its successful application across existing systems is the catalyst for change, Gambetta said. LDPC codes use a set of checks to detect and correct errors. This results in individual qubits being involved in fewer checks and each check involving fewer qubits than previous paradigms. The key advantage of this approach is a significantly improved "encoding rate," which is the ratio of logical qubits to the physical qubits needed to protect them. By using LDPC codes, IBM aims to dramatically reduce the number of physical qubits required to scale up systems. The new method is about 90% faster at conducting error-mitigation than all previous techniques, based on IBM research. IBM will incorporate this technology into its Loon QPU architecture, which is the successor to the Heron architecture used by its current quantum computers. Starling is expected to be capable of 100 million quantum operations using 200 logical qubits. IBM representatives said this was roughly equivalent to 10,000 physical qubits. Blue Jay will theoretically be capable of 1 billion quantum operations using its 2,000 logical qubits. RELATED STORIES — IBM's newest 156-qubit quantum chip can run 50 times faster than its predecessor — equipping it for scientific research — Scientists just built a massive 1,000-qubit quantum chip, but why are they more excited about one 10 times smaller? — Error-corrected qubits 800 times more reliable after breakthrough, paving the way for 'next level' of quantum computing Current models have about 5,000 gates (analogous to 5,000 quantum operations) using 156 logical qubits. The leap from 5,000 operations to 100 million will only be possible through technologies like LDPC, IBM representatives said in a statement. Other technologies, including those used by companies like Google, will not scale to the larger sizes needed to reach fault tolerance, they added. To take full advantage of Starling in 2029 and Blue Jay in 2033, IBM needs algorithms and programs built for quantum computers, Gambetta said. To help researchers prepare for future systems, IBM recently launched Qiskit 2.0, an open-source development kit for running quantum circuits using IBM's hardware. "The goal is to move from error mitigation to error correction," Blake Johnson, IBM's quantum engine lead, told Live Science, adding that "quantum computing has grown from a field where researchers are exploring a playground of quantum hardware to a place where we have these utility-scale quantum computing tools available."
Yahoo
25-06-2025
- Business
- Yahoo
Japan unveils world's most advanced quantum–classical hybrid computing system
Japan now hosts the world's most advanced quantum–classical hybrid setup, pairing IBM's cutting-edge quantum system with one of Earth's fastest supercomputers. On Tuesday, IBM and Japan's national research lab RIKEN unveiled the first IBM Quantum System Two installed outside the U.S., integrated directly with Fugaku — the country's flagship supercomputer. This marks a major step toward 'quantum-centric supercomputing,' where quantum and classical systems work together to solve problems neither could tackle alone. The system, launched in Kobe, features IBM's 156-qubit Heron processor, dubbed as the company's best-performing quantum chip to date. It's quality and speed is 10 times better than the previous generation 127-qubit IBM Quantum Eagle. With significantly lower error rates and 10x more circuit speed than its predecessor, Heron is now capable of running circuits beyond brute-force simulation on classical machines. "The future of computing is quantum-centric and with our partners at RIKEN we are taking a big step forward to make this vision a reality," said Jay Gambetta, VP, IBM Quantum. "The new IBM Quantum System Two powered by our latest Heron processor and connected to Fugaku, will allow scientists and engineers to push the limits of what is possible." Researchers at RIKEN will use the system to advance quantum-classical hybrid algorithms, starting with challenges in chemistry and materials science. The direct link between Heron and Fugaku will enable low-latency, instruction-level coordination between the two machines — a crucial step in developing practical applications for near-term quantum hardware. "By combining Fugaku and the IBM Quantum System Two, RIKEN aims to lead Japan into a new era of high-performance computing," said Dr. Mitsuhisa Sato, Division Director of the Quantum-HPC Hybrid Platform Division, RIKEN Center for Computational Science. "Our mission is to develop and demonstrate practical quantum-HPC hybrid workflows that can be explored by both the scientific community and industry. The connection of these two systems enables us to take critical steps toward realizing this vision." The two systems are connected via a high-speed network at the instruction level, creating a testbed for quantum-centric supercomputing. This deep integration allows engineers to build parallelized workloads, develop low-latency quantum–classical communication protocols, and optimize software stacks. By letting each system handle the parts of a task it's best suited for, the setup plays to the strengths of both paradigms. The installation of IBM Quantum System Two at RIKEN builds on earlier collaborative work between IBM and RIKEN researchers aimed at achieving quantum advantage — the point where quantum systems outperform classical ones in speed, cost, or accuracy. One such effort, recently featured on the cover of Science Advances, used sample-based quantum diagonalization (SQD) to model the electronic structure of iron sulfides — a complex compound found widely in natural and organic systems. Accurately simulating such materials was once thought to require fault-tolerant quantum computers, but SQD offers a glimpse of what near-term quantum machines can already achieve when tightly integrated with powerful classical infrastructure.
