IBM unveils Nighthawk r3: 520 qubits, 10,000 operations

IBM's next quantum chip will carry 520 programmable qubits built from 2,034 physical components and is designed to execute 10,000 quantum operations, SiliconAngle reports. It is called Nighthawk r3, and it supersedes the 120-qubit r2 that shipped in September running roughly 7,500 operations.

"Useful quantum computing hinges on whether results can be delivered with accuracy and speed, both are fundamental," said Jay Gambetta, director of IBM Research.

The speed pitch runs through a faster qubit reset. SiliconAngle puts the wait after a quantum measurement at roughly 25 nanoseconds, down from about 200 milliseconds, effectively deleting the idle time between circuit runs.

The showcase workload is Cleveland Clinic, which IBM says used the Quantum Platform to process 2.6 million samples up to three times faster for modeling biologically relevant structures. IBM also reports wiring two earlier Nighthawk r1 chips together through four long-range quantum interconnects, reaching 99.4% transfer fidelity against a 99.9% target, and has been working with Advanced Micro Devices and Oak Ridge National Laboratory's Quantum Science Center on error correction.

In 2027, IBM plans to link two r3 chips into a single 1,040-qubit system. That is the seventh IBM story on our tracker inside ninety days.