Let me introduce myself one more time.
My name is Eum Kyungsoon and I’m a CTO of IBM as well as its Quantum Computing Ambassador.
I would like to talk about how IBM, in the context of industry and corporations,
has been leading Quantum industry – what it has being doing and
what are its plan in the future – as well as the future of quantum power and its influence.
IBM Q is the naming brand for IBM’s quantum computing.
We’ve been developing quantum computing under this name.
At first, in 2016, IBM provided the world through open source, the use of five-qubits.
After that we’ve been growing every year to the point of developing System One, with 20 qubits,
which was announced on this year’s January.
The picture on the right hand side is System One.
You can see that it’s a little different to the first 5-qubit product we’ve introduced in 2016.
The one on the left is designed for specific research purpose
– you can see it’s shaped like a cylinder with these lines.
The industrialized version of this for commercialization purpose is the newly designed System One.
This System One is an opened product under Cloud service.
Corporate that are working with IBM on quantum computing research can freely access this product.
It’s IBM’s first commercialized quantum product.
System One is as twice as accurate than its older model and we’ve maximized its quantum volume to 16.
This picture you are looking at is a picture from May of 1981.
It’s when IBM and MIT hosted their first big conference called the Computer-Physics Academic Society.
The people inside this picture can be described as the best known experts at that time.
The circled person here is Richard Feynman who received the Nobel Prize for Physics
and he gave a keynote speech at this conference.
He claimed that we need the power of quantum computing that utilizes the quantum mechanics
and this was the beginning.
It became a huge issue at the conference and the following year of 1982,
he developed his claim and published this paper called “Simulating Physics with Computing”.
He said that the conventional computers are not enough to explain the environment
we live in and in order to do so, we need a tool with greater power like the quantum computer.
In 1970, Charles Bennet of IBM introduced to the world
a theory that involved quantum computing with data science.
He’s still working at IBM right now as a research fellow for quantum research..
Since then, there has been more than 40 other people striving to develop this technology and today,
we have successfully commercialized a 53-qubit product through open service.
So why are we keep working on this?
When you drink coffee, the drowsiness tends to go away so you think:
I’ll drink coffee to wake myself while I’m studying.
Why do we wake up when we drink coffee?
Common knowledge is that caffeine wakes us up.
But what are the exact substances inside caffeine the really block us from sleeping
– this analysis something conventional computer cannot process.
Caffeine molecule has all these atoms that make up the molecule.
The mechanics of atom composition and the energy size of the atoms
are something our normal computers cannot examine.
The best of our ordinary computers can represent is 64-bit,
or 2 to the power of 64, but we need around 160 quantum-qubits,
or about 10 to the power of 48, in order to process an analysis for this molecule.
If we physically stack the best semiconductor on the planet one by one,
as high as this Earth itself, we will still be unable to solve this problem.
That’s why we borrow this concept of quantum mechanics and study quantum computing
as a solution to current unsolvable problems.
I’ve mentioned the caffeine molecule just now,
but we’ve actually published a report on Nature magazine
that analyzed a hydrogen molecule using 7-qubit quantum computer
to conduct simulations on its molecular relationships.
It was the largest simulation conducted at the time and the world was really surprised by our experiment.
IBM researchers in quantum computing state that the fastest growing
or the most potential industry related to quantum computing is the chemical industry.
When you think of chemical industry, profounder knowledge of the materials at work
will most likely allow invention of new materials and new medicines.
It is known that chemical industry has the most potential when quantum computing is involved.
Next field is, as the professor mentioned earlier, is A.I. With the power of quantum computing,
research practices will take lesser time to process which will lead to faster lab results.
Additionally, risk-analysis in finance sector and optimization in distribution
or transportation industry are all possible areas where quantum computing will improve outcomes.
The things you see here are, what we consider as,
the most optimized fields where quantum computing can be adopted.
As mentioned previously, we started out with quantum founding.
We consolidated the foundation, root out errors and tried to prove our theories
– this was the process of quantum foundation.
Now, we live in the era of quantum ready.
The qubits of quantum have increased from 5 to 53,
and we plan to expand that volume further on.
When this technology surfaces to the public area and directly support daily lives,
that period will be referred to as the quantum advantage era.
It’s the period of time where quantum technology is commercialized
and optimized to help your personal works.
Just like our classical computers,
the long term goal of our quantum technology is universality and fault-tolerance.
At this level, quantum computer will infiltrate our lives
and replace the role of conventional computers and detect errors,
if they happen to occur, on its own.
That will be called the quantum computer for general purpose.
However, this is a long-term plan which we ourselves consider as a very long path to take.
Our shorter goal is to develop NISQ quantum computer
so that it can be exploited in various sectors of industry.
NISQ is stands for noise intermediate scale quantum.
It inevitably accommodates some level of noise or errors.
When it comes to extremely accurate tasks that require precision down to the very decimal-point,
NISQ will experience difficulty and will consume a lot of time to process.
However, we do not require such absolute accuracy in fields like machine learning.
This “approximate” quantum computer of today is referred as the NISQ process
and this is the type of mechanism we provide to other companies.
So this is what IBM quantum looks like.
Some of you might have seen it before because we’ve brought it in the past to show it to people.
You can see it as a top-bottom structure.
The reason behind this is because the qubits are located at the very bottom.
We need to contain the electrons orbiting the atom so that it doesn’t move randomly on its own
and to do that we need to maintain an extremely low temperature.
This temperate is called the “Kelvin” and it refers to -237.15 degree Celsius.
We drop the temperature from the top and it gets colder as it reaches the bottom.
The freezers are all located within the structure from the ceiling to the bottom.
The coolers are the one that drops the temperature.
So at the very bottom, in case of IBM, we see the temperature of 0.015 Kelvin
and it’s where our qubit quantum, whether it’s 20 or 50, is placed.
So when you see the structure of any quantum computer,
you’ll witness that it always has a top-bottom structure that drops all the way to the floor.
This is, again, because we need to drop the temperature to Kelvin temperature
in order to prepare the atoms for usage.
If you see the picture on the left, you can see that when something’s entered into the computer,
that data is transferred through microwave upward and then down to where the qubits are located
– where the program is executed.
The quantum data does not store data;
it only runs it. When the program is successfully executed,
the result is transferred back to the computer.
This is all I have for today.
When you wish to experience quantum technology, it’s very easy because it’s free.
You can download from our server.
IBM is also known for its security and we are required to update a report regarding our security measures.
When the era of quantum computing arrives,
one of the things we really need to worry is the problem with security.
That’s why we openly share our regular reports on security.
You are welcomed look through our open information and think about how we can manage this issue.
These are just things we consider as introductory level in experiencing quantum technology.
After this session, I wish everyone here,
whether you’re a student, businessman, or researcher,
will come to familiarize themselves with this quantum technology.
Thank you.
