IBM wants you to try out its Quantum Computing hardware over the Internet. The company has launched a simulator online, which allows anyone to conduct quantum computing experiments using IBM’s hardware. The idea is to gain more interest from people around the world, which will in turn help IBM in the development of the computer.
Research on Quantum Computers have been conducted by many, including Google and IBM Research. In fact, Google, in 2014, had developed the Quantum Computing Playground that simulated 22 Qubits. The big difference between Google and IBM Research’s initiatives though, is in the fact that the Quantum Computing Playground wasn’t connected to any real quantum computing hardware on the backend.
A quantum computer is a computer that uses quantum-mechanical techniques, such as entanglement and superposition, to process data. A Quantum Computer is also different from regular digital computers, in the sense that it doesn’t use transistors. Of course, the differences don’t end there either, but that’s a discussion for another day.
IBM Research is currently trying to increase awareness about the field, which is still decades away from coming to the mainstream.