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For hype-wary IBM, quantum-computing sales are close, but not too close -Breaking

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© Reuters. FILEPHOTO: Arvind Kumar, IBM’s CEO, watches as Joe Biden, U.S. president, delivers remarks to members of the national security team, and other leaders of the private sector, to discuss “improvement of the nation’s cybersecurity,” at the East Room.

Jeffrey Dastin, Paresh Dave

(Reuters) – IBM A new goal has been set for the legacy tech company to surpass its competitors: commercially ready quantum computers in three years.

Arvind Krishna, the Chief Executive of International Business Machines Corp, stated Monday that by 2025 International Business Machines Corp will have a quantum computer with more than 4,000 qubits. This is a significant leap from today’s hardware which has 127 qubits.

According to him, technology with this much power can optimize truck routing and improve financial modeling. A normal computer almost “the size of this planet” would be needed to tackle comparable problems, he said.

For years, companies have been touting quantum computing’s capabilities. However, they don’t know much beyond basic applications and error-prone machines. IBM includes Exxon Mobil Corp (NYSE 🙂 and Mitsubishi Chemical Holdings Corp.

Krishna stated that he is not claiming that IBM can’t fulfill its obligations after the “error” of predicting IBM’s Watson AI (AI) service prematurely. This resulted in slower results for healthcare than anticipated. It was harder than creating AI to make quantum systems.

Krishna stated, “We may have hyped certain things.” “This is our attempt to be careful.”

“Would i look you in your eye and tell you that I will find a molecular that can penetrate the blood-brain barrier to solve brain cancer?” Absolutely not,” he added, referring to efforts to discover new drugs via quantum computing.

Krishna however stated that the expected machine in 2025 will have thousands of qubits and at minimum open up commercial opportunities.

IBM is not the only company in pursuit of this goal. Market research company IDC predicts that global governments and businesses will spend nearly $16.4 billion on quantum development by 2027.

Rival Alphabet (NASDAQ) Inc’s Google has set a target to build a computer that can store 1,000,000 qubits in the next decade. Amazon.com Inc (NASDAQ) has formed partnerships with Rigetti Computing which is expected to achieve 4,000 qubits by 2026.

Krishna explained that although supply-chain disruptions do not slow down IBM’s efforts to improve its business, there was a 0.5% – 1% drop in hardware sales as a result of COVID-19 lockdowns occurring in China. To counter disruptions IBM has six months worth of stock and no longer needs one.

IBM also published Tuesday its annual survey regarding AI adoption. This showed that 35% (from 31% last season) of 7,500 companies surveyed across five continents use some form of AI.

According to him, companies are being held back due to a lack of skilled workers or data required for training AI systems. However, there was a turning point.

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