IBM Targets Quantum Advantage with Expanded Software

IBM has released an expanded version of its Qiskit open-source quantum software that aims to support more powerful quantum machines, including in a hybrid configuration with classical computers.

The company is making it available to members of its IBM Quantum Network in the hope that the improved performance will help coders discover the next generation of quantum algorithms for industrial use cases. This could support the drive to deliver meaningful quantum advantage.

“The global adoption of quantum computing — and the discovery of quantum advantage — will require a combination of leading quantum hardware alongside a robust and performant software stack to run workloads,” said IBM fellow and vice president of IBM Quantum Jay Gambetta.

“These two pillars are fundamental to the algorithm discovery that has begun on utility-scale quantum hardware. As a growing quantum ecosystem maps their most difficult problems to quantum circuits, the Qiskit stack will be the cornerstone to exploring the computational spaces in which quantum computing excels.”

The expanded Qiskit software stack includes the stable release of Qiskit SDK v1.x for building, optimizing and visualizing quantum circuits and the Qiskit Serverless open-source tool to run quantum-centric supercomputing workloads across quantum hardware and classical clusters.

It boasts new AI-powered features including optimization of quantum circuits for quantum hardware, embedded in the Qiskit Transpiler Service and the Qiskit Code Assistant, powered by Watsonx-based generative AI models, to automate the development of quantum code

“Qiskit provides an important collection of tools for E.ON as we explore how quantum computing could help us navigate the financial and operational complexities of the energy industry,” said E.ON Energy Intelligence head of data and AI Giorgio Cortiana.

"As a performant foundation to build and discover quantum algorithms that can be applied to business use cases, Qiskit enables our team to advance utility-scale prototypes, with the goal of finding new solutions to challenges in the European energy sector.”

According to IBM, Qiskit has been used by more than 550,000 users to build and run over 3 trillion quantum circuits on IBM’s quantum hardware systems since it was released in 2017.