Honeywell says it’s got the fastest quantum computer on the planet

2 min readJun 18, 2020

Honeywell is the quantum computing champ. On Thursday, Honeywell said it boosted the performance of its quantum computer enough to best that of IBM’s by one closely watched measure. The achievement gives Honeywell’s machine the title of world’s fastest quantum computer, at least for the time being.

The feat fulfills a promise Honeywell made in March and is a milestone in the company’s ambitious effort to increase its quantum computing power by a factor of 10 each year for the next five years. Honeywell’s quantum computer, dubbed H0, scored 64 on a measure known as quantum volume. That test gauges both the total count of a machine’s qubits — the fundamental elements that process data in a quantum computer — and how well the machine uses those qubits.

The result bested the 32 IBM’s Raleigh machine scored in January. Quantum computing relies on the weird rules of atomic-scale physics to solve problems that are practically impossible for ordinary “classical” computers. At least that’s the promise. So far quantum computers are mostly finicky research projects, only outperforming classical computers in one narrow “quantum supremacy” test at Google. But as researchers add more qubits and learn to protect them from disturbances that derail calculations, expect quantum computers to become more powerful. Tasks they’re expected to do well at include optimizing financial portfolios, machine learning, and designing new materials like solar panels or batteries.

Honeywell says it’s got the fastest quantum computer on the planet

Written by Codyalniv