IBM wants everyone to try a quantum computer

Prime Minister Justin Trudeau of Canada grabbed international headlines recently with a simple explanation of a cutting-edge technology called quantum computing. Now IBM is trying to do something similar by making a research-oriented quantum computer and a relatively simple tutorial available online for anyone to try.

The idea of a new class of computers able to exploit the most basic properties of energy and matter to speed calculations beyond what is possible with today’s digital systems has long held both promise and controversy. The systems are based on the notion of a “qubit,” or quantum bit a basic value capable of encompassing more information than the 1’s and 0’s that are the basis of classical digital computing.

A computing system composed of just five qubits, which is what IBM built, would not be able to replace current personal computers. However, the IBM Quantum Experience will allow students, hobbyists and even serious researchers to experiment with algorithms that are radically different from the ones now used for everything from word processing to speech recognition.

“It’s meant to be educational but also to be the beginnings of a larger framework,” said Jerry M. Chow, manager of the Experimental Quantum Computing Group at the IBM Thomas J. Watson Research Center, in Yorktown Heights, New York.

IBM researchers have recently demonstrated a quantum computer that they believe will one day be scaled up to a machine that might have hundreds of qubits and be able to run a wide range of algorithms more quickly than today’s computers.

Some quantum computing theorists believe that such a computer might be designed as a “universal” computer capable of performing any task much faster than machines now in use.

IBM has been gradually enhancing the power of its quantum computer, which is assembled from a network of qubits made from metals that become superconducting when they are cooled to near absolute zero.

Company researchers announced the construction of a four-bit quantum computer last year, and in February they reported they had added a fifth qubit and were making progress in refining certain error-correcting methods that are important for quantum computing.

The IBM quantum computer will offer visually oriented online tutorials that are intended to help people and companies understand how programming such a computer will be different from programming a digital computer. In addition to visual simulations of quantum computing, it will include a gamelike system that will parcel out access to the actual quantum computer for online users.

The idea of computers that might exploit the “spooky” laws of quantum behavior that describe nature at an atomic level was first broached by physicist Richard Feynman in 1981. Since then, scientists have proposed specialized algorithms that might allow quantum computers to break computer codes or even simulate complex biological processes.

The IBM simulator is not the first quantum computing simulator available online. For example, in 2014 Google engineers made available the Quantum Computing Playground that allows online users to play with a simulated quantum computer with between six and 22 qubits.