IBM lays out clear path to large-scale, fault-tolerant quantum computer by 2029 using a bicycle architecture

Good news coming from old Big Blue! From mainframe computers to quantum computers!

Will this Starling on a bicycle become a darling? 😊

Is it a bicycle or bicyclic?

"... IBM Quantum Starling — a large-scale, fault-tolerant quantum computer capable of running quantum circuits comprising 100 million quantum gates on 200 logical qubits. We are building this system at our historic facility in Poughkeepsie, New York. ...

Today, IBM is a leader in quantum computing. Our quantum computers are the only ones capable of delivering accurate results for quantum circuits with 5,000+ two-qubit gates. ...

In 2024, we introduced a fault-tolerant quantum memory based on quantum low-density parity check (qLDPC) codes called bivariate bicycle (BB) codes. The [[144,12,12]] gross code encodes 12 logical qubits into 144 data qubits—a gross—along with another 144 syndrome check qubits, for a total of 288 physical qubits. This code corrects errors just as well as the surface code does, but requires 10x fewer qubits to do so. ..."

From the abstract:

"We present the bicycle architecture, a modular quantum computing framework based on high-rate, low-overhead quantum LDPC codes identified in prior work. For two specific bivariate bicycle codes with distances 12 and 18, we construct explicit fault-tolerant logical instruction sets and estimate the logical error rate of the instructions under circuit noise.

We develop a compilation strategy adapted to the constraints of the bicycle architecture, enabling large-scale universal quantum circuit execution. Integrating these components, we perform end-to-end resource estimates demonstrating that an order of magnitude larger logical circuits can be implemented with a given number of physical qubits on the bicycle architecture than on surface code architectures. We anticipate further improvements through advances in code constructions, circuit designs, and compilation techniques."

IBM lays out clear path to fault-tolerant quantum computing | IBM Quantum Computing Blog "With two new research papers and an updated quantum roadmap, IBM® lays out a clear, rigorous, comprehensive framework for realizing a large-scale, fault-tolerant quantum computer by 2029."

Tour de gross: A modular quantum computer based on bivariate bicycle codes (open access)

2025 IBM Quantum Roadmap.

Our fault-tolerant modular architecture is based on the bivariate bicycle code developed by IBM.

Render of Poughkeepsie data center with IBM Quantum System Two, Starling, and Blue Jay.