Honeywell, one of the larger technology companies involved in the Quantum race towards large-scale quantum computing has announced that is has now achieved a new milestone, roughly a quadrupling of their previous marker. The news comes at an interesting time as we see IonQ head toward the public markets via SPAC making headlines as the first pure-play quantum computing publicly listed company. Honeywell is listed (NYSE: HON), but it is not a pure-play company in that it develops a variety of technologies – especially control systems.
The System Model H1 quadrupled its performance in terms of quantum volume (a measurement of quantum computing performance) and became the first commercial quantum computer to measure 512. Previous announcements only nine months ago saw a QV (Quantum Volume) of 64. Honeywell set that record in June 2020 when it unveiled its first commercial system: Model H0. At the time this would double the QV of other systems. The standard of Quantum Volume was initially popularised by IBM, but the hope is that by using more appropriate measures of Quantum performance that the field can move away from headlines about the sheer number of qubits. Quantum volume is a measurement that requires more statistical tests and a lot more than simply qubit count. These components include: the number of qubits, error rates, connectivity of qubits, and cross-talk between the qubits.
“The System Model H1 is once again the highest performing quantum computing system in the world.”
Tony Uttley, president of Honeywell Quantum Solutions
It marks the third time in nine months Honeywell has set an industry record for quantum volume. The System Model H0 has 6 qubits and the System Model H1 currently has 10 qubits. So despite the relatively low number of qubits, the performance metric could in-fact surpass machines with qubits counts greater then 10. Honeywell is striving toward higher quantum volumes. Read more from Honeywell.