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IBM CEO Ginni Rometty has informed Bloomberg TV that he wants to make a profit with his quantum computers within two to five years. From then on, according to her, we will see real commercial applications, which will result in income.

IBM showed a special quantum computer at CES: IBM Q System One. The system has a striking design and, according to IBM, would one day be used to model financial data or optimise fleet operations.

Within two to five years, quantum computers will be used by commercial companies with real commercial applications. That automatically means that there is income, according to Rometty.

Development race

IBM is in a race with Google, Microsoft and other companies and governments that are all working hard on quantum computers. Today they are still in an experimental phase. Last year, IBM announced a prototype quantum computer with 50 qubits of computing power. Google’s Quantum AI Lab has a 72-qubit processor ready since early 2018.

At the end of 2018, that record was crushed by IonQ with a 79-qubit array. It uses a new technique, trapped ion quantum, to deliver better quality. 7 qubit more seems to be little, but each qubit is a doubling in computing power. This makes the IonQ 128 times faster than Google’s quantum computer.

Qubits, however, do not say much about the quantum computer itself. Accuracy is even more important. IonQ scores well here and IBM scores well, but there are still too few clear figures to draw any conclusions.

Rometty is doing everything in its power to steer IBM towards new business. These include the cloud, quantum computers and artificial intelligence. It wants to drive the company away from the existing hardware, software and services that have a negative impact on the financial figures.

Related: New type of quantum computer crushes all records

This news article was automatically translated from Dutch to give Techzine.eu a head start. All news articles after September 1, 2019 are written in native English and NOT translated. All our background stories are written in native English as well. For more information read our launch article.