IBM announced it is a new partner of the Superconducting Quantum Materials and Systems Center, a DOE National Quantum Information Science Research Center, hosted by Fermilab, as approved by the U.S. Department of Energy Office of Science, Science Programs.
As a major national and international research center, SQMS is dedicated to advancing critical quantum technologies, with a focus on superconducting quantum systems.
IBM is an industry leader in developing superconducting quantum computing technology. This collaboration intends to leverage the strengths of these two organizations to address key hurdles in quantum computing, communication, and large-scale deployment of superconducting quantum platforms, according to IBM.
“We welcome the addition of IBM to the SQMS collaboration, which brings together some of the world’s top experts in superconducting materials, devices and quantum systems. This collaboration aims to leverage our complementary technical strengths and shared goals to advance superconducting quantum systems for progressing toward a fault-tolerant quantum computer,” said Anna Grassellino, SQMS Center Director.
The SQMS Center brings together more than 30 partner institutions representing national labs, industry and academia. The diverse collaboration unites over 500 experts from around the world working together to bring transformational advances in quantum information science.
As part of the collaboration, IBM intends to focus on five critical areas: large-scale cryogenics, superconducting qubit noise sources, quantum interconnects, quantum computing applications for fundamental physics, and quantum workforce development.
“Fermilab and the SQMS Center are the ideal places to develop these key technologies and produce them at scale,” said Lia Merminga, Fermilab director. “We have decades of experience building large, complex superconducting cryogenic systems for accelerators and adopting advanced instrumentation to further our science mission. The advancement of quantum information science is a national priority, and Fermilab is deeply engaged in that progress.”
SQMS partners and IBM plan to advance the study of physics-based applications of quantum computing systems. For example, in condensed matter physics, researchers aim to explore the use of IBM’s utility-scale processors to support a quantum many-body dynamics simulation whose complexity approaches a quantum advantage regime. For high-energy physics, partners will explore simulations of lattice quantum field theories.
To attract and train the next generation of a diverse quantum workforce, SQMS established several successful workforce development programs, including the U.S. Quantum Information Science School shared with the other four National Quantum Information Science Research Centers (NQISRC) funded by DOE. IBM has a robust quantum education program that has enabled millions of learners worldwide and helped provide industry and domain expertise at Fortune 500 companies, universities, laboratories and startups within the IBM Quantum Network by providing tools to build their quantum workforce. SQMS and IBM plan to join forces to strengthen national quantum workforce development programs.
“As we accelerate towards building a large-scale, fault-tolerant quantum computer, we need to solve and scale complex challenges, such as efficient, large-scale refrigeration and high-density and low-loss quantum interconnects, and advance our understanding of noise sources and how to reduce them," said Jay Gambetta, IBM fellow and vice president, IBM Quantum. "The planned participation in the SQMS Center’s research is a pillar for progressing our roadmap towards large-scale quantum computing. Alongside the collaboration to break through quantum hardware barriers, IBM and Fermilab intend to work together to drive scientific applications of quantum computing and build a quantum-ready workforce.”
The start of the collaboration is pending final approval of a legal agreement between IBM and Fermi Research Alliance, LLC.
The Superconducting Quantum Materials and Systems Center at Fermilab is supported by the?DOE Office of Science.
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