Hoping that if you build it, they will come, IBM plans to roll out the world’s first commercial ‘universal’ quantum-computing service some time this year, the company announced on 6 March. Named IBM Q, the system will be accessible over the Internet for a fee.
It will not outperform conventional computers, at least not yet. But the company says that the system will be crucial in developing a market for future quantum machines that can handle complex calculations currently out of reach of classical computers. The cloud service is the latest salvo in the heated battle to build a useful quantum computer.
