Organizations are using today’s quantum computers to find solutions to problems inaccessible to brute force classical methods, and to search for valuable quantum advantage in fields like chemistry simulation, materials science, and machine learning. But how did we get here? And where are we going next? In 2020, we debuted our development roadmap, which laid out our plan for scaling quantum technology through 2023. It set us on course to deliver a chip with over 1,000 qubits in just three years, and introduced the software and services needed to run applications on quantum systems towards frictionless use. In 2023, we showed that quantum computers could run circuits beyond brute force classical simulation, ushering in this era of quantum utility. Now, we also laid theoretical groundwork for a capability that will eventually make quantum computers even more powerful: practical quantum error correction with a new efficient code. These advances formed the foundation of a new, more detailed roadmap extending to 2033.

And here's that updated roadmap. It's really two roadmaps in one. Up top is our development roadmap with public-facing systems and services. The bottom is our innovation roadmap. These internal milestones will drive our development roadmap, and they offer a peek under the hood at our priorities. Let's start up top. Our clients and partners are already working to explore the business value of quantum computers today. That value will increase with the total number of gate operations or quantum program instructions that our systems can handle and return accurate results. Our latest chip, Heron, will run circuits with 5,000 gates with error mitigation by the end of 2024. Improvements will come with Flamingo, based off of the Heron tunable coupler architecture, that will push that to 15,000 gates by 2028. With these gate counts, we expect our users to further cement the utility era we are in and explore discoveries in applications ranging from simulation to machine learning. Now, in 2029, we get a massive jump

in the number of gate operations, with the addition of error correction, enabling deeper circuits. That's when we'll introduce Starling, and then Blue Jay in 2033. These systems open up a whole new world of quantum applications. But today's developers won't need to worry about the transition. Any program you build today will be executable on our future hardware. Of course, quantum workloads require software and infrastructure, too. Earlier this year, we hit an important milestone with Qiskit SDK 1.0, hallmarking the reliability, performance, and stability of our stack for building and optimizing quantum circuits. Now, as we move further into the era of utility, Qiskit has to expand to the complete platform of tools that enable you to extract utility from quantum systems. This includes AI-assisted code generation and circuit optimization, tools to manage heterogeneous computing environments, including high-performance classical computing, and a runtime with powerful error mitigation capabilities built right in. This is all directed towards

delivering performance by Qiskit. By 2033, we expect to see general-purpose quantum computing libraries designed for a wide variety of quantum applications. Let's talk about our innovation roadmap. Some of these technologies will be internal proofs-of-concept that inform future development, while others will be prototypes of subsequent releases. Hardware innovations will let us scale and parallelize workloads across processors, while also interplaying classical and quantum resources. That's key for enabling this coming era of quantum-centric supercomputing. For our error correction goal, we'll need to develop three new kinds of connectors to connect distant points on the same chip, to seam chips together into one, and to connect separate chips over longer distances. In 2027 and 2028, we’ll further set the stage for error correction with two prototypes, Cockatoo and Starling, demonstrating logical operations between error corrected lattices. We’ll have software innovations too, including prototypes supporting large-scale circuits

and a more frictionless developer experience. They'll incorporate AI, new tools for resource management, and decoder prototypes for error correction. You'll see these innovations flowing into production in the following years. We feel confident in our plan to bring useful quantum computing to the world. The utility era is here, and it's already time to explore business and scientific value with quantum computers today. Thank you, and I hope you’ll get started.

2024 IBM Quantum Roadmap Update

IBM Research is a group of researchers, scientists, technologists, designers, and thinkers inventing what’s next in computing.

We’re relentlessly curious about all the ways that computing can change the world. We’re obsessed with advancing the state of the art in AI and hybrid cloud, and quantum computing. We’re discovering the new materials for the next generation of computer chips; we’re building bias-free AI that can take the burden out of business decisions; we’re designing a hybrid-cloud platform that essentially operates as the world’s computer. We’re moving quantum computing from a theoretical concept to machines that will redefine industries.

The problems the world is facing today require us to work faster than ever before. We want to catalyze scientific progress by scaling the technologies we’re working on and deploying them with partners across every industry and field of study. Our goal is to be the engine of change for IBM, our partners, and the world at large.
