IBM has announced the the Japanese research institute Riken has chosen to install an IBM Quantum System Two processor to be installed at its facility and integrated with Riken’s Fugaku supercomputer. The system that will be installed is IBM’s latest generation Heron processor which contains 133 qubits and offers a considerable improvement in qubit quality metrics over their earlier systems. It will be the only quantum computer co-located with Fugaku when it is installed.
Although IBM has installed other on-premise quantum computers at both the Cleveland Clinic as well as the Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute (RPI), this deal is different in two key ways. First, it involves the IBM Quantum System Two while the others involved the earlier 127 qubit IBM Quantum System One Eagle processor. Second, part of the research will include integration to create a classical/quantum hybrid system with the very powerful Fugaku supercomputer. According to the November 2023 TOP500 list, Fugaku is the fourth most powerful supercomputer in the world, contains over 7.6 million processor cores, and achieves a peak performance level of 537 petaflops per second. Fugaku was built by Fujitsu and was first installed at Riken in 2020 with an estimated build cost of $1 billion.
Funding for this project will come from Japan’s New Energy and Industrial Technology Development Organization (NEDO). Besides Riken other collaborators in using the system will include SoftBank, the University of Tokyo, and Osaka University. Riken has several other quantum computer collaborations in process including ones with Fujtisu and Quantinuum. However, neither of these are being integrated with Fugaku.
A press release announcing Riken’s selection of the IBM Quantum System Two for this project can be accessed here.
May 1, 2024