Q&A with IBM Quantum Director Jerry Chow on the state of quantum computing, IBM's 10-year quantum roadmap, the IBM Quantum Heron processor, qubits, AI, and more
Nilay Patel / The Verge :
Context & Ripple Effects
IBM’s quantum program has long framed progress around practical utility rather than a single headline milestone, amid a wider race among IBM, Google, Microsoft, and others to make quantum hardware usable. This Q&A puts Jerry Chow’s perspective alongside IBM’s leadership under Chow and its earlier public discussion of a 10-year path to a 100,000-qubit system.
The appearance of the Heron processor makes the roadmap more concrete: the relevant question is not qubit count alone, but whether processor design, software, and error management can advance together.
First-order effects
- IBM gains a public forum to explain how Heron, qubits, AI, and its long-range roadmap fit into one quantum-development strategy, giving customers and researchers a clearer basis for tracking its stated milestones.
- Chow’s role becomes more visible as IBM links technical execution and product direction, rather than treating quantum progress as a standalone research announcement.
Second-order effects
- Rival quantum programs face added pressure to articulate comparable roadmaps that connect hardware advances to useful systems, not just isolated performance claims.
- Enterprise and research users evaluating quantum access will increasingly compare full-stack progress—processors, tooling, and error-management paths—through a multi-company quantum race lens.
Third-order effects
- If vendors continue to publish long-horizon roadmaps tied to successive processors, competition will shift from raw physical-qubit counts toward the economics of producing reliable logical qubits and operating integrated quantum systems.
- The sector’s credibility will increasingly depend on measurable transitions from experimental hardware to repeatable workloads; roadmaps can set expectations, but do not themselves establish commercial utility.
The trend: Quantum computing is moving from milestone-driven research messaging toward roadmap-based competition over integrated hardware, software, and error-correction progress.