IBM from the world’s most powerful quantum processor named Osprey Unveiled that has 433 quantum bits (qubit) is huge. The new chip will bring big advances in quantum computing, and the company says it’s gearing up for a big leap next year.
Although traditional computers have served users for decades, they are fading in comparison to quantum computers. While traditional examples store and process data in binary bits, as zeros and ones, the latter uses qubits that can be zeros, ones, or both at the same time.
This exponentially increases processing power for each added qubit, allowing quantum computers to perform calculations that are impossible for conventional computers.
Osprey Quantum Processor Features
At 433 qubits, IBM’s Osprey processor is by far the most advanced quantum processor in the world. The previous record holder was Xanadu’s Borealis, which tested at 216 qubits, and IBM’s own Eagle processor, introduced last year, also had 127 qubits. So the Osprey is twice as powerful as the Borealis and three times as powerful as the Eagle.
Osprey is architecturally unchanged from its predecessor, still consisting of a single qubit layer on top of multiple layers of control wiring, which helps squeeze more qubits in and lower their error rate. Of course, now an integrated filter system has been added to it, which helps to reduce noise and improve the stability of the device.
IBM says the machine’s number crunching capabilities far exceed those of any traditional computer, claiming that a typical computer would need more bits than known atoms in the world to display the state of the Osprey’s processor.
IBM also hinted at other changes to its quantum systems. On the software side, the error correction process has been improved and users have been given the option to easily choose between increasing speed or accuracy.
However, IBM’s plans for next year will be even more impressive. The company plans to introduce another quantum processor called Condor next year, which has 1121 qubits. Also in the company’s plans is a modular processor called Heron, which can stack multiple 133-qubit units together to build more powerful quantum processors.
