In order to advance and accelerate the field of quantum computing, North Carolina State University is joining IBM Q, becoming part of a collaboration of national research labs, Fortune 500 companies, and other academic institutions. Working together through the IBM Cloud, where they all have access to IBM Q’s commercial quantum computing systems, the collaboration will explore practical applications for the technology in both the business and scientific fields.
NC State University will gain access to a 20 qubit IBM Q system, with a future 50 qubit system planned, once IBM Q’s next-generation systems are available. Through their use of IBM’s open source quantum software and developer tools, the University will be aiding the growth of the quantum computing ecosystem that includes the public IBM Q Experience and QISKit. So far the IBM Q Experience has helped more than 80,000 users run over 4 million experiments, generating over 65 third-party research publications.
“Academic collaborations are essential to growing the quantum computing community as we look to discover practical quantum applications and drive business and scientific breakthroughs,” said IBM Research’s vice president of IBM Q Strategy and Ecosystem, Dr. Bob Sutor. “Building on a 30-year research and education partnership, NC State will play a key role in helping IBM continue to extend our quantum computing ecosystem.”
The IBM Q Network includes other notable universities like Keio University, the University of Melbourne, and the University of Oxford. Other research hubs for IBM Q include Oak Ridge National Lab and IBM Research, enabling people and universities all over the globe to work with IBM to advance quantum computing as a whole.
