IonQ Quantum Computer 4 Million Quantum Volume and 16X Error Correction

IonQ trapped ion quantum computer is completing a $2 billion SPAC merger which will give it about $600 million in cash to fund its quantum computer developments.

IonQ indicates that its 32 qubit trapped ion quantum computer can achieve a quantum volume of 4 million. Honeywell has the leading commercial quantum computer (also trapped ion) that has a quantum volume of 512. Quantum volume is a quantum computer power benchmark that factors in qubits and the ability of the quantum system to maintain stability and solve a standardized problem.

The investor presentation deck shows that IonQ believes that their error correction will only take 16 dirty qubits to achieve 1 error corrected qubit. Other quantum systems are looking at thousand of dirty qubits to get one error corrected qubit. It is believed that error corrected qubits are needed to achieve massively scaled quantum computers.

IonQ believes that there will be significant early revenue from quantum machines improving aspects of machine learning on regular computers then the next market will be improved materials discovery and then improving chemistry for the end 2026-2030 timeframe.

3 thoughts on “IonQ Quantum Computer 4 Million Quantum Volume and 16X Error Correction”

  1. IonQ has neither released their research paper nor run anything yet to prove the 4 million quantum volume claim yet – but at least with those very large claims they aren't claiming any broad quantum advantage until 2025 at the earliest.

  2. I know there are problems with the quantum volume metric. And the new work with sixty GPUs able to solve the google quantum problem in five days. It is unknown how improving quantum systems will work together with quantum simulation, smart people and improving algorithms. I think we won't know until we try. Having big, scalable, error corrected quantum systems will help us to explore problems and algorithms and push the leading edge. Moore's law in conventional computers gave billions in calculation improvement but improved algorithms also improved computation and solutions by similar magnitudes.

  3. See the "Honeywell Commercial Quantum Computer Hits 512 Quantum Volume…" post for why 4 million quantum volume is actually rubbish.

Comments are closed.