Delta, Anthem, and Los Alamos Lab join the IBM Quantum Computing Network

Delta Airlines, Anthem, Georgia Tech, the Los Alamos National Lab, and other new network members will join the largest commercial quantum computing program available, which includes Fortune 500 companies, startups, universities, and research labs.

IBM announced the news at CES 2020. The IBM Q Network now has almost 100 organizations working with IBM to advance the technology and explore practical applications. 

Some of the startups joining the network include AIQTech, Beit, Quantum Machines, TradeTeq, and Zurich Instruments.These organizations join more than 200,000 current users, who have run hundreds of billions of executions on IBM's quantum systems and simulators through the IBM Q Cloud.

These organizations also have access to IBM's open source Qiskit software and developer tools, as well as cloud-based access to the IBM Quantum Computation Center.

Rahul Samant, Delta's CIO, said the quantum computing project is another example of how the airline is using advanced technology to address business problems. 

"We've done this most recently with biometrics in our international terminals and we're excited to explore how quantum computing can be applied to address challenges across the day of travel," he said.

SEE: Quantum computing: A cheat sheet (TechRepublic)

Delta will have access to the IBM Q Network's world's largest fleet of universal hardware quantum computers for commercial use cases and fundamental research at the IBM Q Hub at NC State University.

Daniel Stancil, PhD, the executive director of the IBM Q Hub at NC State, said students and researchers are excited to work alongside IBM and Delta to identify opportunities for development and implementation. 

IBM systems recently reached Quantum Volume 32--a new performance milestone. According to the company, this metric represents how powerful a quantum computer is, including the number of qubits, connectivity, and coherence time, as well as accounting for gate and measurement errors, device cross talk, and circuit software compiler efficiency. The higher the Quantum Volume, the more real-world, complex problems quantum computers can potentially solve.

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