IBM Q : Cloud Quantum Computing for commercial use
▻http://www.newsweek.com/2017/04/21/quantum-computing-ibm-580751.html
IBM had been dabbling with commercial possibilities when last year [2016] it released Quantum Experience, a cloud-based quantum computing service researchers could use to run experiments without having to buy a quantum system. In early March, IBM took that program further and announced IBM Q, the first cloud quantum computing system for commercial use. Companies will be able to buy time on IBM’s quantum computers in New York state, though IBM has not set a release date or price, and it is expected to be financially prohibitive for smaller companies at first.
[...]
Eventually, quantum computing could outperform the world’s fastest supercomputer—and then all computers ever made, combined. We aren’t there yet, but at 50 qubits, universal quantum computing would reach that inflection point and be able to solve problems existing computers can’t handle, says Jerry Chow, a member of IBM’s experimental quantum computing department. He added that IBM plans to build and distribute a 50-qubit system “in the next few years.” Google aims to complete a 49-qubit system by the end of 2017.
Note:
A company called D-Wave Systems already sells 2,000-qubit systems, but its systems are different from IBM’s and other forms of universal quantum computers, so many experts don’t consider their development to have reached that quantum finish line. D-Wave Systems’s computers are a type of quantum computer called quantum annealers, and they are limited because they can be used only on optimization problems. There is a roaring scientific debate about whether quantum annealers could eventually outpace traditional supercomputers, but regardless, this type of quantum computer is really good at one niche problem and can’t expand beyond that right now.
More on IBM Q:
▻http://research.ibm.com/ibm-q
▻https://www.scientificamerican.com/article/ibm-will-unleash-commercial-universal-quantum-computers-this-yea
▻http://www.pcworld.com/article/3176853/hardware/ibms-new-q-program-to-include-a-50-qubit-quantum-computer.html