“To scale beyond linking two quantum computers that are separate but physically close, IBM and Cisco are planning to explore how to transmit qubits over longer distances, such as between buildings or data centers,” the companies stated. “To achieve this, the companies will explore optical-photon and microwave-optical transducer technologies and investigate how they can be incorporated into a quantum network to transfer quantum information as needed.”
Cisco’s quantum network would aim to distribute the entanglements to arbitrary pairs of QNUs on an on-demand basis to drive the quantum information transfer required for a given quantum algorithm or application, the vendors said. “Towards this goal, Cisco is developing a high-speed software protocol framework that can continuously and dynamically reconfigure network paths so entanglements could be distributed to the QNUs when they are done with their partial computations.”
Big Blue and Cisco said they plan to investigate how a network bridge, comprised of novel hardware and open-source software, could use Cisco quantum network nodes to link many IBM QPUs within a data center through its QNU interface. Looking ahead, this approach could be extended to link QPUs across multiple data centers, the vendors said. This would scale a larger quantum network across even larger distances to form the groundwork for a future quantum computing internet.
Building a distributed and scalable quantum computing network will create a pathway towards an exponentially large computational space and allow the expansion of diverse technologies, which could begin to form a future quantum computing internet by the late 2030s, IBM and Cisco stated.
“A quantum computing internet provides a future where many distributed quantum-based technologies, such as quantum computers, quantum sensors, and quantum communications are connected and share information across distances, such as a metro region and eventually at a planetary scale,” the vendors stated.
Recent quantum progress
Both IBM and Cisco have made a number of quantum-related announcements in recent months.
