International Business Machines Corp. IBM-N says it will build its first Canada-based quantum computer by 2023, partnering with Quebec’s provincial government to allow both public and private-sector researchers to use the equipment to try solving problems in materials science, sustainability, drug discovery and other fields.
The two parties are investing $131-million to build the system at IBM’s semi-conductor assembly and testing facility in Bromont, Que., between Montreal and Sherbrooke. The latter city’s namesake university has an existing partnership with IBM, which allows researchers to access the company’s quantum-computing power remotely.
Quantum computing is based on the understanding in quantum physics that particles can do multiple things at once. While traditional computing is built upon calculations involving combinations of binary bits – ones and zeroes – quantum computing’s “qubits” can be a mix of both one and zero, allowing for certain kinds of calculations to happen simultaneously.
This upends the basic building blocks of computing, but at a large technical cost, since quantum systems must be kept isolated from external sources of disturbance. Those who champion the approach say the investments will eventually produce enormous gains in many areas where computing power presents a barrier.
Quebec and IBM announced the news Thursday afternoon. In an interview, IBM’s Montreal-based senior innovation executive, Jean-François Barsoum, echoed the caution shared by many quantum experts – that it will take at least five years for the technology to become anywhere near mainstream. But he added that growing ranks of specialists can use quantum computers to augment existing research being done with artificial-intelligence algorithms.
“We can split up a problem into separate pieces and leverage quantum for part of that problem, leverage AI for another part of that problem. And so together, they can produce a result that happens much faster,” Mr. Barsoum said.
IBM will bring in a dedicated team to maintain the Quebec-based computer. From the outside, it will have the appearance of a sleek box with a refrigerator-sized cooling cylinder sticking out. That cylinder will keep the system’s internal temperature near absolute zero, to minimize the chances of disturbances.
In a separate investment, also announced today, IBM said it would bolster the research and development being done on semi-conductor assembly at the Bromont facility, enabling staff there to hunt for new ways to boost the processing speed of computing equipment or lower its electricity consumption.
The National Research Council Canada has projected that the domestic quantum market could be worth as much as $142.4-billion by 2040. Though scientists have speculated for years that quantum will be the future of computing, its high complexity and expense have proven to be significant roadblocks. Many Canadian companies have tried to lay claim to the sector with varying degrees of success.
British Columbia’s D-Wave systems Inc. created the world’s first commercially available computer to be powered by quantum mechanics, and built a list of clients that included NASA and Google – only to deliberately slow down active sales of its US$15-million, shed-sized devices in 2020. Instead, D-Wave said it would focus more on managing its machines and selling access to their computing power.
That kind of quantum machine requires its key chips to be super-cooled in order to function. But last year, Toronto’s Xanadu Quantum Technologies Inc. raised US$100-million from investors, including the U.S. Central Intelligence Agency and Tiger Global, as it developed a method of using light particles to create quantum effects on its chips. Xanadu executives believe costs can be significantly reduced by minimizing or cutting out the super-cooling process, though the company has not yet reached significant commercial scale.
With a history in large-scale computing stretching back more than a century, IBM has access to significantly more cash and institutional knowledge than most startups. But many younger Canadian companies – including Xanadu, D-Wave and the Vancouver software developer 1QB Information Technologies Inc. – have formed an industry group called Quantum Industry Canada to promote the country’s burgeoning sector. The group did not immediately respond to a request for comment Thursday.
IBM says it has deployed more than 20 quantum-computing systems across the world, though many are based at the company’s headquarters in New York. The company has launched several “discovery accelerator” programs that grant scientists access to both AI and quantum-computing power. The Quebec site will be only the second of these accelerators, after the Cleveland Clinic medical centre in Ohio, to include a dedicated quantum computer on the premises.
IBM also said it would also give Quebec researchers access to software models and libraries that could help them accelerate life-sciences research, such as in drug design and genomics.
With a report from Ivan Semeniuk
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Josh O’Kane