IBM researchers announced they have overcome one of the biggest technical barriers in functional quantum computing and plan to launch a large-scale, fault-tolerant quantum machine by 2029. The development could mark a turning point in the race to build computers far more powerful than anything available today.
The breakthrough centers on a new way to fix the errors that plague quantum systems. Unlike classical computers, which use bits that flip between 0 and 1, quantum computers rely on qubits. These qubits can hold more complex information, but are highly unstable and prone to frequent errors. As more qubits are added, those errors increase and make calculations unreliable.
IBM says its new method dramatically reduces these issues. The technique utilizes LDPC codes, which allow the system to detect and correct errors more efficiently than before. Each qubit is part of fewer checks, and each check involves fewer qubits, allowing the machine to grow in size without being overwhelmed by mistakes.
This is no longer a science problem—it’s now an engineering challenge, said Jay Gambetta, IBM’s vice president of quantum operations, in an interview with Live Science. He added that the fundamental science behind reliable quantum computing has been solved.
We’re excited to share our plans for IBM Quantum Starling, expected to be the world’s first large-scale, fault-tolerant quantum computer.
This new system, to be delivered to clients by 2029, is expected to perform 20,000x more operations than today’s quantum computers. Read more… pic.twitter.com/zFitqHly4U
— IBM (@IBM) June 10, 2025
The company plans to build its next-generation systems in two stages. The first machine, named Starling, will launch by 2029 and use 200 logical qubits supported by about 10,000 physical qubits. It is expected to perform up to 100 million quantum operations, a massive leap from today’s systems, which handle around 5,000.
A second system, Blue Jay, is slated for 2033. It will operate on 2,000 logical qubits and is anticipated to achieve 1 billion operations.
IBM claims these numbers would only be possible using LDPC-based error correction. Older systems, including those from competitors like Google, are unlikely to scale to this level of performance, according to IBM researchers.
The company will use the new LDPC method in its upcoming Loon QPU architecture, which succeeds the current Heron models. IBM also released Qiskit 2.0, a free, open-source software toolkit designed to help developers write and run programs for quantum systems. The toolkit aims to prepare the research community for the powerful hardware expected later this decade.
“The goal is to move from error mitigation to error correction,” said Blake Johnson, head of IBM’s quantum engine team. “Quantum computing has grown from a field where researchers are exploring a playground of quantum hardware to a place where we have these utility-scale quantum computing tools available.”
If successful, these advancements could bring quantum computing closer to solving real-world problems in medicine, climate science, and cybersecurity—areas where traditional machines fall short.
