Insider Brief
- IonQ expanded the commercial availability of its next generation quantum computer – IonQ Forte.
- IonQ Forte is a ytterbium-based system, first made available in limited access in 2022.
- This is IonQ’s third commercially available system offered by IonQ, appearing alongside IonQ Aria and IonQ Harmony.
PRESS RELEASE — IonQ (NYSE: IONQ), an industry leader in quantum computing, today, expanded the commercial availability of its next generation quantum computer – IonQ Forte. First made available in 2022 through limited access, the ytterbium-based system is now available to customers from around the world, enabling applications that can lead to solutions for today’s most complex problems. With 32 physical qubits, a record algorithmic qubit count of #AQ 29 – with room for future improvements – and the latest hardware integrations, IonQ Forte is advancing performance for new possibilities.
“IonQ Forte represents the culmination of years of research and development from the world’s brightest quantum developers, partners and researchers, and we’re excited to make the system broadly available and see what results come to fruition,” said Peter Chapman, CEO and President, IonQ. “IonQ Forte is designed for customers working on the quantum frontier and provides them with the qubits and software needed to tackle larger problems than ever before. IonQ Forte is the latest addition to our world-class portfolio of products – including IonQ Harmony and IonQ Aria – and supports IonQ’s broader goal of making quantum accessible for all types of users and projects.”
A handful of IonQ’s commercial partners including Airbus, Hyundai Motor Company, and Los Alamos National Lab have already started running algorithms on IonQ Forte with promising early results:
- Airbus, expanding on their IonQ Aria work, co-developed an aircraft loading optimization algorithm that utilizes 28 qubits to execute full variational optimization of a quantum circuit, the largest variational optimization performed on a QPU to date.
- Hyundai Motor Company has begun running computer vision projects on Forte that were impossible to run in their previous work on both Aria and Harmony.
- Los Alamos National Lab is successfully sampling boolean satisfiability problems on IonQ Forte using QAOA in order to probe the scalability of QAOA on NISQ computation.
“Los Alamos National Laboratory is using IonQ Forte as part of quantum discovery, which we anticipate will enable more discovery techniques and algorithms,” said Stephan Eidenbenz, a senior quantum computing researcher at Los Alamos.
IonQ Forte is the third commercially available system offered by IonQ, appearing alongside IonQ Aria (#AQ 25) and IonQ Harmony (#AQ 11). IonQ Forte replaces a key control system from previous system generations with a new technology that results in more accurate qubit control signals, improving quantum gate operation accuracy. This technology, which allows for control lasers to be individually addressed to individual qubits, also results in increased software configurability, a major advancement over existing quantum computers. The unique approach has positioned IonQ Forte as IonQ’s highest performing system, capable of running wider and deeper circuits than any other commercially available quantum computer.
Today’s commercial availability of IonQ Forte furthers IonQ’s broader vision of making the world’s most powerful quantum systems available to users at scale. During a time where other quantum startups are struggling financially or larger tech companies are embellishing their quantum achievements, IonQ is driving continued business growth, delivering data-driven results, and achieving technological breakthroughs ahead of its own expected timeline.
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