The world’s largest industrial research organization has revealed its plans to develop the first large-scale, fault-tolerant quantum computer, paving the way for practical and scalable quantum computing by the decade’s end.
Technology company IBM, also called the Big Blue, revealed that the groundbreaking innovation Starling will be capable of running quantum circuits with over 100 million quantum gates on 200 logical qubits.
The innovative tech is expected to be built at a new IBM Quantum Data Center in Poughkeepsie, New York State, by 2029, and will carry out 20,000 times more operations than current quantum computers.
Starling will reportedly serve as the foundation for the subsequent system, IBM Quantum Blue Jay, which will feature 2,000 logical qubits and be capable of executing one billion operations.
A groundbreaking innovation
The tech company outlined its plans to develop a practical, fault-tolerant quantum computer in a recently published Quantum Roadmap. It claimed that representing the full computational state of the upcoming quantum system would demand more memory than a quindecillion (10⁴⁸) of the world’s most powerful supercomputers combined.
“With Starling, users will be able to fully explore the complexity of its quantum states, which are beyond the limited properties able to be accessed by current quantum computers,” IBM officials said.
Credit: IBM
A large, fault-tolerant quantum computer with hundreds or thousands of logical qubits could perform hundreds of millions to billions of operations. It could accelerate time and cost efficiencies in drug discovery, materials research, and chemistry.
However, similar to classical computers, quantum ones also need to be error corrected to run large workloads without faults. To achieve this, logical qubits, formed from clusters of physical qubits – the fundamental units of quantum information – are formed to detect and correct errors during computation.
“Creating increasing numbers of logical qubits capable of executing quantum circuits, with as few physical qubits as possible, is critical to quantum computing at scale,” IBM emphasized.
The future of quantum computing
Arvind Krishna, IBM chairman and CEO, claimed that IBM is leading the way into the next quantum computing tier. According to him, this is backed by the company’s plans to launch Quantum Loon. This processor will test components necessary for the qLDPC code, including long-distance qubit couplers, later this year.
IBM is also preparing to introduce its first modular processor designed to both store and process encoded quantum information, the Quantum Kookaburra, in 2026. The system will integrate quantum memory with logic operations, forming a foundational building block for scaling fault-tolerant quantum systems beyond a single chip.
Moreover, by 2027, the company aims to release Quantum Cockatoo, which will connect two Kookaburra modules using ‘L-couplers,’ effectively linking quantum chips into a larger networked system.
“Our expertise across mathematics, physics, and engineering is paving the way for a large-scale, fault-tolerant quantum computer – one that will solve real-world challenges and unlock immense possibilities for business,” Krishna said in a press release.
The company is tackling fault tolerance with a new design that employs quantum low-density parity check (qLDPC) codes. This approach greatly decreases the number of physical qubits needed, reducing overhead by approximately 90 percent compared to other prominent error correction methods.
It also released two technical papers explaining the method, one of which shows how qLDPC codes can improve instruction processing and operational efficiency. The other, in turn, reveals how error correction and decoding can be managed in real-time using classical computing resources.
