IBM and Fraunhofer Unveil Fastest Quantum Computer in Europe – Event Brief
By: Eric M. Luyer, Industry Research Analyst Axendia Inc.
Axendia Inc. was present on 15-JUN-2021 at the official inauguration of the first IBM Quantum Computer in Europe by IBM and the Fraunhofer-Gesellschaft. The setting was a compact virtual live event with highly distinguished guest speakers: Dr. Angela Merkel – German Chancellor, Dr. Arvind Krishna – CEO and Chairman IBM, Prof. Dr. Reimund Neugebauer – President of the Fraunhofer – Gesellschaft e.V. as well as various representatives of large industries such as Trumpf, Bosch, BASF, BMW and others.
The Fraunhofer-Gesellschaft, headquartered in Germany is the world’s leading applied research organization. Its focus is on developing key technologies that are vital for the future and enabling the commercial exploitation of these developments for business and industry. Their key focus is on innovation processes and how new technologies can change industry as well as the impact it has on product concepts and development.
IBM proudly introduced the Quantum System One with the 27-qubit Falcon processor, as the first system in this class in Europe. It is optimized to ensure quality, stability, reliability and reproducibility of complex – multi Qubit – applications.
IBM was the first company to optimize the combination of Hybrid Cloud and Quantum Computing technology and currently more than 350.000 users form an active community having run hundreds of billions of transactions on real IBM Quantum computer systems worldwide. In the meantime, IBM has many commercial clients using the IBM Quantum Network, a community of many different businesses, research labs, start-ups, education institutions as well as governmental organizations working with IBM to accelerate research, educate and train, and develop applications thus advancing the business opportunities of quantum computing.
The goal of IBM and Fraunhofer using the new IBM Quantum Computer System One is to open new opportunities for industry in Europe “to further initiate and develop new business processes, to tackle very complex molecular and chemical interactions, to solve complicated optimization problems and to make artificial intelligence significantly more “powerful”, said Prof. Dr. Reimund Neugebauer, President of Fraunhofer.
For the Life Sciences industry, including Drug Manufacturers and Medical Device Manufacturers, opportunities could be big: value can be achieved by accelerating discovery, research and development of new instruments, devices, new drugs and specific complex patient treatments. Other valuable elements of quantum computing are prediction and simulation of expected outcomes that lead to achieving better results in a much shorter timeframe, lower cost and better patient outcomes.
An example in the Life Sciences industry on how quantum computing can be used, was an announcement on March 30: Cleveland Clinic (US) and IBM presented a planned 10-year partnership to establish the Discovery Accelerator, a joint Cleveland Clinic – IBM center with the mission of fundamentally advancing the pace of discovery in Healthcare and Life Sciences through the use of high performance computing on the hybrid cloud, artificial intelligence (AI) and quantum computing technologies. Through the Discovery Accelerator, the researchers plan to use advanced computational technology to generate and analyse data to help enhance research in areas such as: genomics, single cell transcriptomics, population health, clinical applications, and chemical and drug discovery.
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The opinions and analysis expressed in this Briefing Note reflect the judgment of Axendia at the time of publication and are subject to change without notice. Information contained in this document is current as of publication date. Information cited is not warranted by Axendia but has been obtained through a valid research methodology. This document is not intended to endorse any company or product and should not be attributed as such.
For more information see: https://www.ibm.com/quantum-computing/ and www.quantencomputing.fraunhofer.de