IBM’s most advanced quantum computer now runs in Chicago, built around its Nighthawk chip

Chicago now hosts the most advanced quantum computer IBM offers. An IBM Quantum System Two, the company’s first machine in Illinois, is up and running at Hyde Park Labs, hosted by the University of Chicago.

Inside is IBM Quantum Nighthawk, which IBM calls the most powerful quantum chip it has ever built. The system is only a temporary resident there: it will move to the Illinois Quantum and Microelectronics Park, a Chicago campus for quantum and microelectronics work that is still being built.

At the park it will anchor the National Quantum Algorithm Center, set up in 2024 with IBM as a leading member. The center is about software rather than hardware: partners write algorithms meant to scale as the machines improve. Deloitte and AbbVie are working with IBM and Northwestern University on molecular simulation for drug discovery, EPRI and the University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign are testing quantum optimisation for more efficient power grids, and Fermilab is applying the technology to high-energy physics.

IBM chief executive Arvind Krishna says the system can already deliver “scientifically useful results” to organisations in Illinois and beyond. That is a careful claim: useful for research, not yet a replacement for classical computers in everyday work. IBM points to a recent result with the University of Chicago, where it says a quantum approach with guaranteed correctness beat the best classical methods.

There is a jobs angle too. IBM previously announced a FutureNow Chicago center at the same park with City Colleges of Chicago, aimed at bringing 750 jobs to the region across AI, cybersecurity, data science and quantum computing. IBM has not said when the system will make the move to the park.

Reported by IBM, PR Newswire. Compiled with AI tools.