IBM: Quantum chips will beat standard chips within two years

IBM said on Monday it has designed a new quantum computing chip that executives believe will enable quantum systems to begin outperforming classical computers on certain tasks within the next two years.

Reuters reported that IBM said its "Eagle" computing chip has 127 so-called qubits, which can represent information in quantum form. While the "bits" used by traditional computers must be either 1 or 0, qubits can be both 1 and 0 at the same time.

This fact could make quantum computers much faster than classical ones, but qubits are extremely difficult to make and require huge cryogenic refrigerators to operate properly.

IBM said on Monday it plans to produce a 433-qubit "Osprey" chip and a 1,121-qubit "Condor" chip in 2022.

By then, IBM says it will be close to so-called "quantum advantage," the point at which quantum computers can beat traditional computers.

“This doesn’t mean that quantum computers will outperform classical computers all of a sudden. Instead, IBM envisions a world where some parts of a computing application run on classical chips and some parts run on quantum chips, depending on what works best for each task,” said Darío Gil, senior vice president and head of IBM Research. “We believe we will demonstrate quantum advantage in the next few years.”