IBM announced on Wednesday it has built a new experimental quantum computing chip called Loon that demonstrates it hit a key milestone toward making useful quantum computers before the end of the decade.
Due to the uncertain nature of quantum mechanics, the chips are prone to errors, so In 2021, IBM proposed a new way of doing error correction: adapt an algorithm for improving cellphone signals to quantum computing and run it on a combination of quantum chips and classical computing chips.
Mark Horvath, a vice president and analyst at research firm Gartner, told Reuters in an interview that the downside of IBM’s idea is that the quantum chips become harder to build because they must contain not only basic building blocks of quantum chips called “qubits” but also new quantum connections between the qubits.
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“It’s very, very clever,” Horvath said. “Now, they’re actually putting it in chips, so that’s super exciting.”
Quantum computers are advanced computing devices that leverage the principles of quantum mechanics to perform calculations in ways classical computers cannot. Instead of using bits that are either 0 or 1, they use qubits, which can exist in multiple states at once (superposition) and be interconnected through entanglement, allowing highly coordinated computations.
Quantum computers can explore many possibilities simultaneously and use quantum interference to amplify correct solutions, making them potentially much faster at solving certain complex problems, such as simulating molecules, optimizing large systems, or breaking some types of encryption. However, they are still experimental, limited by qubit instability, noise, and scalability challenges, and are not universally faster than classical computers for all tasks.
Loon remains in its early stages, and IBM did not disclose when outsiders can test it. But the company also announced on Wednesday a chip named “Nighthawk” that will be available at the end of this year.
These developments underscore IBM’s aim to move quantum systems beyond academic proofs into deployed infrastructure, leveraging advanced error‑correction techniques, stronger qubit connectivity, and manufacturing at scale. At the same time, the announcement acknowledges that the technology remains in its early phase: chip prototypes are not yet broadly available, and key challenges around decoherence, scaling and integration persist.
Jay Gambetta, director of IBM Research and an IBM fellow, said the key was tapping the Albany NanoTech Complex in New York, which houses the same chipmaking tools as the most advanced factories in the world.
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“We’re confident there’ll be many examples of quantum advantage,” Gambetta told Reuters. “But let’s take it out of headlines and papers and actually make a community where you submit your code, and the community tests things, and they select out which ones are the right ones.”
If IBM meets its roadmap, the implications could reach across industries – from drug discovery and logistics to cryptography and materials science. Yet the timeline and commercial impact are uncertain, dependent on successful engineering, ecosystem build‑out, and market readiness.