Delivered by 2029, IBM Quantum Starling will be built in a new IBM Quantum Data Center in Poughkeepsie, New York and is expected to perform 20,000 times more operations than today’s quantum computers.
Starling will be able to access the computational power required for these problems by running 100 million quantum operations using 200 logical qubits. It will be the foundation for IBM Quantum Blue Jay, which will be capable of executing 1 billion quantum operations over 2,000 logical qubits.
From Roadmap to Reality
The new IBM Quantum Roadmap outlines the key technology milestones that will demonstrate and execute the criteria for fault tolerance. Each new processor in the roadmap addresses specific challenges to build quantum computers that are modular, scalable, and error-corrected:
IBM Quantum Loon, expected in 2025, is designed to test architecture components for the qLDPC code, including “C-couplers” that connect qubits over longer distances within the same chip.
IBM Quantum Kookaburra, expected in 2026, will be IBM’s first modular processor designed to store and process encoded information. It will combine quantum memory with logic operations — the basic building block for scaling fault-tolerant systems beyond a single chip.
IBM Quantum Cockatoo, expected in 2027, will entangle two Kookaburra modules using “L-couplers.” This architecture will link quantum chips together like nodes in a larger system, avoiding the need to build impractically large chips.
To represent the computational state of an IBM Starling would require the memory of more than a quindecillion (1048) of the world’s most powerful supercomputers. With Starling, users will be able to fully explore the complexity of its quantum states, which are beyond the limited properties able to be accessed by current quantum computers.
IBM, which already operates a large, global fleet of quantum computers, is releasing a new Quantum Roadmap that outlines its plans to build out a practical, fault-tolerant quantum computer.
* IBM Quantum roadmap, processors, and infrastructure outline clear path to IBM Quantum Starling, expected to be first large-scale, fault-tolerant quantum computer
* Breakthrough research defines key elements for an efficient fault-tolerant architecture — charting the first viable path toward a system projected to run 20,000 times more operations than today’s quantum computers
* Representing the computational state of IBM Starling would require the memory of more than a quindecillion (1048) of the world’s most powerful supercomputer
Brian Wang is a Futurist Thought Leader and a popular Science blogger with 1 million readers per month. His blog Nextbigfuture.com is ranked #1 Science News Blog. It covers many disruptive technology and trends including Space, Robotics, Artificial Intelligence, Medicine, Anti-aging Biotechnology, and Nanotechnology.
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Perhaps “fault tolerance” with early quantum computers, may require us to employ more understood technologies to provide “armor, padding” whatever, when a quantum computer “looses it”. To provide a “baseline”, it can always return to some base it understands. It may take a few picoseconds, to “get it’s barring’s”, but I doubt we would notice. What’s the difference between a “quantum moment and one of ours”? At our level, a moment is scientifically the shortest amount of time. Undefinable, actually. At the quantum level? Makes anything at the Q level, look like one of those ancient theatrical plays which went on for days, where people would do/pay ANYTHING just to leave.. My point?
Our reality deals with cause and effect. Not quantum stuff. Effect seems to coincide with cause, or worse everything seems to happen, at the same moment (there’s that word again) (I’m so f****** confused!) So what else is new? Perhaps we can “slow down, at least at an investigative level” using technology we DO understand, events in our quantum computers. We NEED boundaries in time/space. But at the quantum level? There are none. So, we impose what we understand to a world that is unimaginable. So perhaps one day we can, as well as use it to our advantage. Just a thought…
Quantum computers are seen one day being able to factor number to crack RSA encryption. Currently they are at 15 digits using quantum annealing, by Shor’s algorithm they are still at the two digit number 21. Meanwhile digital computers have factored a 250 digit number. So there is still quite a way to go.