Shenzhen SpinQ Technology Co., Ltd. has come out with three models 

The year 2022 has witnessed many momentous moments: multiple moon missions, fusion power, JWST’s new but ancient galaxies, ChatGPT, quantum leaps in quantum computing etc. Yet, what 2022 might one day end up being largely remembered for, is as the year when the first affordable retail quantum computer went on sale.

Shenzhen SpinQ Technology Co., Ltd. has come out with three models – Gemini, Gemini Mini and Triangulum that are ‘portable’ quantum computer models anyone can buy. While the first two are “2 qubits desktop NMR quantum computer”, Triangulum is a “3 qubits desktop NMR quantum computer”. Though the Chinese company had begun shipping their quantum computers earlier and the first ‘real’ quantum computer – IBM’s Quantum System One was installed in Germany on June 15 2021, what is unique about these models is weight and cost: at 14 kilograms and $5,000 Gemini Mini is the lightest and most affordable quantum computer in a market where the average low price is still a few hundred thousand with the high-end models selling for millions of dollars.

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Thousands of miles away from the company’s quantum computation center in Poughkeepsie, New York, IBM is bringing quantum technologies out of Big Blue’s labs and directly to partners around the world. A Quantum System One, IBM‘s flagship integrated superconducting quantum computer, is now available on-premises in the Kawasaki Business Incubation Center in Kawasaki City, for Japanese researchers to run their quantum experiments in fields ranging from chemistry to finance.

Most customers to date can only access IBM‘s System One over the cloud, by connecting to the company’s quantum computation center in Poughkeepsie. Recently, the company unveiled the very first quantum computer that was physically built outside of the computation center’s data centers, when the Fraunhofer Institute in Germany acquired a System One. The system that has now been deployed to Japan is therefore IBM‘s second quantum computer that is located outside of the US.

The announcement comes as part of a long-standing relationship with Japanese organizations. In 2019, IBM and the University of Tokyo inaugurated the Japan-IBM Quantum Partnership, a national agreement inviting universities and businesses across the country to engage in quantum research. It was agreed then that a Quantum System One would eventually be installed at an IBM facility in Japan.

Building on the partnership, Big Blue and the University of Tokyo launched the Quantum Innovation Initiative Consortium last year to further bring together organizations working in the field of quantum. With this, the Japanese government has made it clear that it is keen to be at the forefront of the promising developments that quantum technologies are expected to bring about.

Leveraging some physical properties that are specific to quantum mechanics, quantum computers could one day be capable of carrying out calculations that are impossible to run on the devices that are used today, known as a classical computers.

Source: https://www.zdnet.com/