IBM and University of Chicago researchers said they achieved verified quantum advantage by completing a computation in about 15 minutes that would require prohibitive runtimes for leading classical simulation methods.
The organizations said the team encoded 70 logical qubits with a new error-correction method, in what they described as one of the largest demonstrations of logical quantum computing to date.
The researchers executed 2,415 logical two-qubit operations and 468 logical T gates, while achieving logical error rates ten times lower than the underlying physical error rates, according to the organizations.
The approach differs from earlier quantum advantage claims based on random circuit sampling. The organizations said the new method keeps the same computational hardness while allowing error detection during the computation.
“Verification remains one of the biggest challenges in firmly establishing experimental quantum advantage,” Bill Fefferman, an associate professor of computer science at the University of Chicago, said. “This experiment develops techniques to better characterize the fidelity of hard quantum states under noise, increasing confidence that the quantum computer is solving a computationally hard problem.”
“We are now firmly in the quantum advantage era,” Jay Gambetta, director of IBM Research and an IBM Fellow, said.
The paper describing the result has been published on the arXiv preprint server.
On the same day, IBM Chief Executive Arvind Krishna said on Mad Money that quantum computing would have “a measurable impact” on IBM’s top and bottom line by 2028 or 2029, and projected “a trillion dollars of value” by the end of the 2030s.
Krishna’s comments came weeks after IBM shares fell 25% on July 14 after the company disclosed customer delays in capital spending. He said roughly 40% of delayed deals had closed within three to four weeks of the earnings announcement.
IBM plans to invest more than $10 billion in quantum computing over the next five years and still expects to deliver its first large-scale, fault-tolerant quantum computer by 2029.
In May, IBM signed a letter of intent with the U.S. Department of Commerce to build what the company described as the world’s first pure-play quantum wafer foundry, backed by a $1 billion CHIPS incentive commitment and a matching $1 billion from IBM.
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