IBM has made available to anyone to use for free a powerful new quantum computing research project.
IBM's research department presents their quantum computing project on their official website. On Wednesday, May 4, the research arm of the business technology company announced that it is allowing everyone's access to one of its quantum computing processors.
Quantum computing is a technology still in its experimental phase. According to tech experts, quantum processors have the potential to operate fast with huge amounts of data.
According to The Verge, now IBM has launched an online simulator offering the company's hardware for anyone to run quantum experiments. This practically means that the company has opened up its quantum research project to the web.
Anyone from tech savvy teenagers to university professors can now apply to test the processor on IBM Research's website. To most people, the quantum computer machine is not recognizable as a computer. It can only process basic logical equations and cannot run Windows on it.
In IBM's vision, online access will pave the way for future developments and spark interest for the new technology. Depending on how well versed people are in quantum technology and their overall technology background, IBM will determine how much access people receive to the processor, according to the manager of IBM's experimental quantum computing group, Jerry Chow. He explained for The New York Times that the online quantum computing simulator is meant to be educational, but it could also "be the beginnings of a larger framework."
Fortune reports that, while in traditional computing data are encoded in one of two states, in quantum computing, particles called quantum bits are the ones to handle the heavy duty processing. These quantum bits of qubits are not limited to being either on or off, being more versatile than a typical computer bit.
In theory, the versatility of quantum bits allow for the ability to calculate complex algorithms and more powerful processing. All these can be done far faster than the speed of today's super computers.
