The annual Think conference unveils an
expanded roadmap for quantum computing and plans for 4,000+ qubit
system in 2025
ARMONK,
N.Y., May 10, 2022 /PRNewswire/ -- IBM (NYSE:
IBM) today kicked off its annual Think conference in Boston, bringing together clients and IBM
Ecosystem partners around the world to discuss how technology
drives organizations to excel in a digital world. During the event,
IBM senior executives, global business leaders, and industry
experts will discuss significant advances in technology and issues
such as sustainability, innovation and research, talent retention,
and automation.
"Technology is now the source of competitive advantage with
digital transformation leading the way. Our clients and partners
trust IBM to deliver the innovation behind hybrid cloud, AI, and
consulting solutions that are helping to ensure their success,"
said Arvind Krishna, Chairman and
Chief Executive Officer, IBM. "Our Think events will showcase how
IBM is co-creating with an expanding ecosystem to make progress on
the most pressing issues enterprises and society face today."
Major announcements from Think 2022 include:
Extending the Roadmap for Practical and Large-Scale Quantum
Computing
Today's announcement showcases the expansion of
IBM's roadmap to achieve practical quantum computing and deliver a
4,000+ qubit system in 2025. This roadmap lays out plans for new
modular architectures and networking that will allow quantum
systems to have larger qubit counts – up to hundreds of thousands
of qubits. To enable these systems with the speed and quality
necessary for practical quantum computing, IBM plans to continue
building intelligent software to distribute workloads across
quantum and classical resources, and abstract away infrastructure
challenges.
- On the hardware front, the company will deliver three new
scalable architectures to enable a new class of modular and
networked quantum processors. The combination of these techniques,
along with software innovations, will be leveraged towards IBM's
2025 goal: a 4,000+ qubit processor built with multiple clusters
of modularly scaled processors.
- In tandem, IBM will progress on its goals to build a
frictionless development experience with Qiskit Runtime and
workflows built right into the cloud to bring a serverless approach
into IBM's core quantum software stack and give developers advanced
simplicity and flexibility. This approach will mark a critical step
towards achieving the intelligent and efficient distribution of
problems across quantum and classical systems, and lay the
groundwork for an era of quantum-centric supercomputing.
- Originally announced in 2020, IBM's quantum roadmap has
delivered on each of the targets on its timeline. This includes IBM
Eagle, a 127-qubit processor with quantum circuits that cannot be
reliably simulated exactly on a classical computer, and a 120x
speedup in the ability to simulate a molecule using Qiskit Runtime,
compared to a prior experiment in 2017. Later this year, IBM
expects to unveil its 433-qubit processor, IBM Osprey, as well as
IBM Condor, the world's first universal quantum processor with
1000+ qubits, in 2023.
For more information on IBM's expanded quantum roadmap, please
visit the IBM Research blog:
https://www.research.ibm.com/blog/ibm-quantum-roadmap-2025.
Global Insights from IBM Shows Steady Growth in AI and
Sustainability Prioritization
IBM issued the Global AI
Adoption Index 2022, which surveyed 7,502 senior business
decision-makers and showed business adoption of AI grew steadily in
the last 12 months.
- Today, 35% of companies reported using AI in their business, up
four points from 2021; and 30% say employees at their organization
are already saving time with new AI and automation software and
tools.
- At the same time, responding companies that have not deployed
AI are three times as likely to say that they have little to no
confidence their company has the proper data management tools than
companies with AI deployment, further evidence that effective data
management and AI deployment go hand in hand.
- Additionally, while trustworthy AI is a priority for
businesses, many organizations reported that they haven't taken
steps to ensure AI is trustworthy and responsible, such as reducing
bias (74%), tracking performance variations/model drift (68%), and
making sure they can explain AI-powered decisions (61%).
- Other key findings include that C-suite interest in
sustainability goals is now a key driver of AI adoption as
two-thirds (66%) of organizations surveyed are currently or
planning to apply AI to address their sustainability goals.
Business leaders' prioritization of sustainability on corporate
agendas was further highlighted in a new IBM Institute for Business
Value (IBV) CEO study which surveyed more than 3,000 CEOs
worldwide.
- The annual study revealed that almost half (48%) of surveyed
CEOs say sustainability is one of their highest
priorities, and that growing pressures
from boards and investors, along with a lack of reliable data
insights and technology barriers, are hindering leaders' ability to
take action.
- More than half (51%) of surveyed CEOs cite sustainability as
among their greatest challenges in the near-term, a 59% jump since
2021.
Partnership Momentum Continues to Accelerate
As part
of a long-standing partnership with SAP, IBM is undertaking one of
the world's largest corporate SAP enterprise resource planning
(ERP) transformation projects designed to better support clients
and fuel its company growth.
- IBM is currently migrating to SAP S/4HANA®, SAP's next
generation ERP system. The business-led project will ultimately
move more than 375 TB of data from on premises and multiple cloud
environments, accelerated by RISE with SAP on IBM Power on Red Hat
Enterprise Linux on IBM Cloud.
- The major IT transformation, led by IBM Consulting, will
eventually move more than 300 SAP instances and consolidate 500
servers with RISE with SAP on IBM Power on Red Hat Enterprise Linux
on IBM Cloud. The SAP S/4HANA® migration is currently in progress
across the company's $13B software
business unit where it is now in production.
Tackling the Talent Shortage and Cybersecurity though
Skills
Building on a commitment to skill 30 million people
by 2030, IBM is addressing the talent shortage and cybersecurity
crisis with new and expanded partnerships with six Historically
Black Colleges & Universities (HBCUs), the U.S. Department of
Veterans Affairs and Specialisterne Foundation.
- The first six of more than 20 planned Cybersecurity Leadership
Centers with HBCUs and HBCU systems include: North Carolina A&T State University,
Southern University System,
Clark Atlanta University, Xavier University of Louisiana, Morgan State University, South
Carolina State University.
- These universities will have access to a customized multi-year
cybersecurity experience with IBM, including online learning
curricula, cloud access, and an immersive learning experience to
expand HBCUs' capacity to develop top talent in the cybersecurity
sector.
- IBM will also partner with U.S. Department of Veterans Affairs
and Specialisterne Foundation to offer IBM SkillsBuild. Through
this initiative, IBM is offering enhanced resources for
transitioning Service members who are seeking job training and
credentials through the VA to pursue customized learning paths and
other accelerated, non-traditional job training for high demand
technology careers. In addition, through IBM's work with
Specialisterne Foundation, job training will be provided to the
neurodivergent community across 13 countries (Australia, Austria, Brazil, Canada, Denmark, France, Iceland, Ireland, Italy, Mexico, Spain, UK, U.S.).
During his keynote today, Krishna will be joined on stage by
three visionaries creatively applying technology to business to
drive change. These "New Creators" include Bryan Young, Co-Founder & CEO, Home Lending
Pal, who is using technology to make the homebuying process more
equitable for underserved communities; Dr. Rania Khalaf, CIO & CDO, Inari, who is using
AI to create a more sustainable future for the food system; and
Kiersten Todt, Chief of Staff, U.S.
Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency (CISA), who is
using technology to reduce risk to the cyber and physical
infrastructures Americans rely on every day. "New Creators" will be
featured throughout the Think on Tour events. In addition, various
"New Creators" will be featured in print, digital, out-of-home, and
video marketing assets as part of IBM's "Let's Create" integrated
brand platform.
Think Broadcast, produced with WIRED Brand Lab, can be accessed at
www.ibm.com/Think and will air 10 a.m.
ET – 12 p.m. ET May 10 and 11 in English, Spanish, Japanese,
Korean, Portuguese, French, Italian, German, and Simplified
Chinese. Replays of the onstage sessions from Think Boston will
also be available on-demand the day of the event at
www.ibm.com/Think.
Following the flagship event in Boston, Think on Tour will travel to more than
a dozen cities around the world. For updates on confirmed cities,
please visit: https://www.ibm.com/events/think/on-tour/.
About IBM
IBM is a leading global hybrid cloud and AI,
and business services provider, helping clients in more than 175
countries capitalize on insights from their data, streamline
business processes, reduce costs and gain the competitive edge in
their industries. Nearly 3,000 government and corporate
entities in critical infrastructure areas such as financial
services, telecommunications and healthcare rely on IBM's hybrid
cloud platform and Red Hat OpenShift to affect their digital
transformations quickly, efficiently, and securely. IBM's
breakthrough innovations in AI, quantum computing,
industry-specific cloud solutions and business services deliver
open and flexible options to our clients. All of this is
backed by IBM's legendary commitment to trust, transparency,
responsibility, inclusivity, and service.
For more information, visit https://www.ibm.com.
Media Contact:
Amanda Carl
IBM Communications
amcarl@us.ibm.com
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SOURCE IBM