In the world of quantum computing, some of the world’s most important tech giants are striving to achieve a permanent advantage over classical computing, solving problems that simply cannot be solved using any number of classical computers. A bevy of start-ups are also in contention, with promising ideas, although some are still just scientific concepts. This article will touch on the industry landscape and detail why we believe that IBM is in the pole quantum position. (Like many in the tech industry, IBM is a client of Cambrian-AI Research.)
The IBM Quantum System Two in Poughkeepsie, NY. IBM
Background
Quantum stocks and private company valuations have skyrocketed in 2025. Pure-play public quantum computing stocks like IonQ, Rigetti Computing, D-Wave Quantum, and Quantum Computing saw trailing 12-month gains ranging from roughly double to nearly 20-fold, vastly outpacing the Nasdaq Composite.
In addition to these early pure-play publicly traded firms, tech behemoths like IBM, Nvidia, Google, Amazon, and Microsoft are investing in what they hope will become “Next Big Thing After AI”. Of course, Big Tech funds quantum investments from their existing compute and IT businesses, while early IPO companies have more acute investors demands, so naturally there is some angst about the short-term trajectory of the latter after the recent run-ups.
Quantum research and development requires massive investments in scientific research and increasingly product development for competitive advantage and product/service sales. All told, the industry has invested well over1.9 billion in venture capital alone in 2024 for quantum startups in 62 funding rounds, a 138 percent increase over the USD 789 million raised in 2023, according to Crunchbase data. Leading companies across a wide range of industries are now developing their quantum strategies to benefit from what will almost certainly become one of the most impactful revolutions in computing since, well, AI.
This article outlines the various modalities vying to achieve Quantum Advantage (QA) over the next few years. Achieving QA means that quantum has performed meaningful tasks that simply cannot be calculated by any classical supercomputer of any size. We then dive into news from the leader in the field of quantum superconducting qubits and quantum computing overall, IBM.
Quantum Modalities
Unlike digital semiconductor-based computing, quantum computing methodologies are all over the map, and it is not yet clear which “modalities” will come out on top. Some companies, like IBM and Google, use superconducting qubits cooled to near absolute zero. Others, such as Quantinuum, use charged ion particles trapped and suspended in a space.
In fact, the quantum computing landscape features six primary hardware modalities competing for dominance: superconducting qubits, trapped ions, neutral atoms, photonic systems, silicon spin qubits, and the nascent research into topological qubits. Each approach offers distinct advantages and faces unique challenges in the race toward fault-tolerant, utility-scale quantum computing. In my opinion, IBM is the leader in superconducting, Quantinuum is probably the leading player in trapped ions, and QuEra is the contender in neutral atoms. The other three modalities are not yet in a competitive stance but theoretically show promise.
I intend to flesh out my research on the top three modalities over the next few months, starting with Superconducting and the leader in that space, IBM.
IBM Quantum: Superconducting Qubits
Superconducting qubits operate at near-zero degrees Kelvin, colder than outer space, and were one of the first modalities to be employed for quantum computing.
For quantum computing to become viable, first you need to satisfy the DiVincenzo criteria to have a working quantum computer. Then, in addition to that baseline, there are four requirements: a scalable, fault-tolerant quantum system, software for the development of quantum circuits, an affordable manufacturing line, and a community of users. IBM has demonstrated progress and sustained leadership on all four, laying the path to quantum advantage by the end of 2026, and achieving full fault tolerance by 2029.
IBM has been researching quantum computing since the 1970s, with consistent advances across the technology roadmap along with an extensive ecosystem of developers and researchers. The company regularly publishes a comprehensive roadmap showing that it is meeting its goals, which milestones it is working to achieve, and when they will be completed. Notably, IBM has yet to miss a published milestone. It is hard to read without glasses, but their well-publicized and complete roadmap is below.
The IBM Quantum Roadmap. IBM
It bears repeating that at this year’s IBM Quantum Developers Conference, IBM announced it had lain the groundwork for enabling the community to achieve quantum advantage next year and for a fully fault-tolerant quantum computing system by the end of 2029.
“There are many pillars to bringing truly useful quantum computing to the world,” said Jay Gambetta, Director of IBM Research and IBM Fellow. We believe that IBM is the only company that is positioned to rapidly invent and scale quantum software, hardware, fabrication, and error correction to unlock transformative applications. We are thrilled to announce many of these milestones today.”
The announcements made at the conference include the new Quantum Nighthawk chip and an experimental Loon chip, updated Qiskit development software, a critical quantum advantage tracker, an error-detection decoder using an AMD FPGA, and the transition to 300mm wafer production at the Albany NanoTech facility.
The Nighthawk Chip: A Path to Scalable Quantum Advantage
Nighthawk is IBM’s most advanced processor for the near term, with 120 qubits. Using Nighthawk, developers could demonstrate a useful advantage over what could be achieved with classical large high-performance computer systems. It is 30 percent faster than the previous generation and features 218 couplers for connecting adjacent qubits. Nighthawk is the IBM platform that partners will use to create the first solutions that achieve Quantum Advantage.
IBM Quantum NightHawk , the basis for quantum application development. IBM
Now IBM is also gearing up to scale Nighthawk. Future iterations of Nighthawk are expected to deliver up to 7,500 gates by the end of 2026, followed by up to 10,000 two-qubit gates in 2027. By 2028, Nighthawk-based systems could support up to 15,000, enabled by 1,000 or more connected qubits that extend through long-range couplers first demonstrated on IBM experimental processors last year.
Realizing Quantum Advantage
“Quantum Advantage is the ability to execute a task on a quantum computer in a way that meets two criteria. First, the correctness of the quantum computer’s output can be rigorously scientifically validated. Second, it is performed with a quantum separation that demonstrates superior efficiency, cost-effectiveness, or accuracy over what is attainable with classical computation on its own.”
To help developers know and share that they have achieved Quantum Advantage, IBM has created a community-based “quantum advantage tracker”. Algorithmiq, the Flatiron Institute, and BlueQubit are contributing new results to the open quantum advantage tracker, which encourages members of the community to contribute scientifically proven demonstrations of advantage or classical algorithms that falsify those claims This milestone, if widely used, will distinguish advantage verified by the community from today’s frequent and often unsubstantiated claims
Quantum Development Platform Qiskit Updates
Qiskit is the world’s best-performing quantum software stack, developed by IBM. It now gives developers more control and better performance by scaling dynamic circuit capabilities (which we covered in Forbes last year), delivering more than 20 percent increases in accuracy across 100+ qubits.
IBM Qiskit is the industry’s first choice for developing quantum circuits, by far. IBM
Programmers, in general, prefer to write or generate code in their favorite language, and C++ is by far the favorite for maximum performance. IBM is extending Qiskit with a new execution model that offers a C-API, unlocking HPC-accelerated error-mitigation capabilities that reduce the cost of extracting accurate results by more than 100 times. By 2027, IBM also plans to extend Qiskit with computational libraries for machine learning and optimization to address fundamental physical and chemical challenges, including differential equations and Hamiltonian simulations.
The Experimental Quantum Loon
The company also announced IBM Quantum Loon, its experimental processor that, for the first time, demonstrates all the key components needed for a fault-tolerant quantum memory, a clear requirement for fault tolerant quantum computing. IBM Loon will validate a new architecture to implement and scale the elements necessary for practical, high-efficiency quantum error correction. IBM is touting features that will be incorporated into Loon, including the introduction of multiple high-quality, low-loss routing layers to provide pathways for longer, on-chip connections (or “c-couplers”) that go beyond Nighthawk’s nearest-neighbor couplers to link distant qubits on the same chip physically.
The experimental Loon will be a step toward fully fault tolerant Quantum Computing. IBM
Advancements in Quantum Error Correction Codes
While IBM Quantum is blindingly fast thanks to its superconducting implementation, today’s IBM systems are still noisy, like all quantum compute technologies, and so quantum error mitigation and error correction are critical.
IBM has now proven it is possible to use classical computing hardware to detect errors at run-time in less than 480 nanoseconds accurately, eight times the fastest GPU, and it has arrived a full year ahead of schedule. We expect IBM to add an even faster hardware equivalent of this FPGA prototype in a future generation of quantum computers
IBM Scales Fabrication to 300mm Facilities
IBM is also announcing that the primary fabrication of its quantum processor wafers is being undertaken at an advanced 300mm wafer fabrication facility at NY Creates’ Albany NanoTech Complex in New York. This move will pave the way for IBM to ramp to volume production. Loon and Nighthawk—plus all future chips on the IBM Quantum Development Roadmap—are being fabricated at NY CREATES’ Albany NanoTech Complex using state-of-the-art 300mm semiconductor wafer technology. The Albany facility is one of the world’s most advanced semiconductor fabs.
IBM has moved wafer production to 300mm fab facility in upstate NY. IBM
Using this strategy, IBM has doubled the speed of its research efforts by cutting the time needed to build each new processor by at least half.
Key Takeaways
The age of quantum computing is nigh, and IBM is delivering the scalable, fault-tolerant hardware, software, manufacturing and community ecosystem needed to enable a fast production ramp in the next few years while others such as Quantinuum are close behind.
Quantum Computing will not displace today’s or tomorrow’s classical computer technology. Instead, Quantum will enhance it, enabling solutions that simply do not exist today, even in the largest supercomputers. In fact, most envision that quantum computers will work together with classical computing systems.
Buckle up, folks; Quantum is nearly here, and it will change the world of computing as we know it.
The final cooling stage for a quantum chip, called a candelabra. IBM
Disclosures: This article expresses the opinions of the author and is not to be taken as advice to purchase from or invest in the companies mentioned. My firm, Cambrian-AI Research, is fortunate to have many semiconductor firms as our clients, including Baya Systems BrainChip, Cadence, Cerebras Systems, D-Matrix, Esperanto, Flex, Groq, IBM, Intel, Micron, NVIDIA, Qualcomm, Graphcore, SImA.ai, Synopsys, Tenstorrent, Ventana Microsystems, and scores of investors. I have no investment positions in any of the companies mentioned in this article.