IBM Partners With Japanese Business, Academia in Quantum Computing

IBM partnership will see Toshiba and Hitachi gain cloud-based access to the US tech giant’s quantum computers.

By Reuters | Updated: 30 July 2020 16:55 IST

IBM Partners With Japanese Business, Academia in Quantum Computing

IBM is targeting at least doubling the power of its quantum computers each year

Highlights

Members of the new group includes Toshiba and Hitachi
It will gain cloud-based access to IBM's quantum computers
The Quantum Innovation Initiative Consortium will be based in Tokyo

US tech firm International Business Machines on Thursday launched a research partnership with Japanese industry to accelerate advances in quantum computing, deepening ties between the two countries in an emerging and sensitive field.

Members of the new group, which includes Toshiba and Hitachi, will gain cloud-based access to IBM's US quantum computers. The group will also have access to a quantum computer, known as IBM Q System One, which IBM expects to set up in Japan in the first half of next year.

The "Quantum Innovation Initiative Consortium" will be based at the University of Tokyo and also includes Toyota Motors, financial institutions and chemical manufacturers. It will aim to increase Japan's quantum skill base and allow companies to develop uses for the technology.

It follows a agreement between IBM and the university, signed late last year to further co-operation in quantum computing, which holds the promise of superseding today's supercomputers by harnessing the properties of sub-atomic particles.

"We're trying to build a quantum industry," Dario Gil, director of IBM Research, told Reuters. "It's going to take these large scale efforts."

The partnership comes as the United States and its allies compete with China in the race to develop quantum technology, which could fuel advances in artificial intelligence, materials science, and chemistry.

"We have to recognise quantum is an extremely important, competitive and sensitive technology and we treat it as such," Gil said.

Last September, IBM said it would bring a quantum computer to Germany and partner with an applied research institute there.

IBM is targeting at least doubling the power of its quantum computers each year and hopes to see its system become a service powering corporations' operations behind the scenes.

Quantum computers rely on superconductivity that can only be achieved in temperatures close to absolute zero, making developing viable systems a formidable technical challenge.

© Thomson Reuters 2020

Is Redmi Note 9 the perfect successor to Redmi Note 8? We discussed this on Orbital, our weekly technology podcast, which you can subscribe to via Apple Podcasts, Google Podcasts, or RSS, download the episode, or just hit the play button below.

Affiliate links may be automatically generated - see our ethics statement for details.

Comments

For the latest tech news and reviews, follow Gadgets 360 on X, Facebook, WhatsApp, Threads and Google News. For the latest videos on gadgets and tech, subscribe to our YouTube channel. If you want to know everything about top influencers, follow our in-house Who'sThat360 on Instagram and YouTube.