Key Takeaways
IBM (IBM) shares hit an all-time high Tuesday as company showcased what it called a “viable path” to building the world’s first large-scale, “fault-tolerant” quantum computer by the end of the decade.
IBM shares edged 1.5% higher Tuesday to close at $276.24, topping a record set just a day earlier. The company’s shares have climbed for eight consecutive sessions, adding roughly one-quarter of their value since the start of the year.
The computer, dubbed IBM Starling, is expected to be capable of performing 20,000 times the operations of quantum computers that exist today, according to IBM. Such a computer could “accelerate time and cost efficiencies in fields such as drug development, materials discovery, chemistry, and optimization,” the company said.
A fault-tolerant computer is able to suppress the errors that can occur as a result of running quantum computing operations, IBM said. Historically, correcting those errors at a large scale has presented engineering challenges.
IBM laid out milestones along the way to Starling in 2029, including the launch of IBM Quantum Loon later this year, which the company said is meant to test certain architectural components.