To scale up quantum computers to a practical size and provide them as a service, the abstraction of computing systems with a large number of quantum bits is a key step towards practical quantum computing.As a milestone to this goal, NTT, RIKEN, and collaborators launched a quantum computing service with 64 quantum bits in March 2023.In this article, NTT's efforts in this development to control a largescale quantum computer and make it a cloud service are described.The configuration of the cloud service and future prospects of quantum computing are also explained.
To scale up quantum computers to a practical size and provide them as a service, the abstraction of computing systems with a large number of quantum bits is a key step towards practical quantum computing.As a milestone to this goal, NTT, RIKEN, and collaborators launched a quantum computing service with 64 quantum bits in March 2023.In this article, NTT's efforts in this development to control a largescale quantum computer and make it a cloud service are described.The configuration of the cloud service and future prospects of quantum computing are also explained.
Abstract Superconducting quantum computing has emerged as a leading platform in the pursuit of practical quantum computers, driven by rapid advances from industry, academia, and government initiatives. This review examines the state of superconducting quantum technology, with emphasis on qubit design, processor architecture, scalability, and supporting quantum software. We compare the hardware strategies and performance milestones of key players—including IBM Quantum, Google Quantum AI, Rigetti Computing, Intel Quantum, QuTech, and Oxford Quantum Circuits—highlighting innovations in qubit coherence, control, and system integration. Landmark demonstrations such as quantum supremacy experiments are discussed alongside progress toward real-world applications in the noisy intermediate-scale quantum (NISQ) era. Beyond hardware, attention is given to the broader software and service ecosystem, including quantum programming frameworks, operating environments, and cloud-accessible platforms such as Amazon Braket, Azure Quantum, and OriginQ Cloud, which enable remote access and algorithm development. Persistent challenges in superconducting quantum computing—such as error correction, system stability, and large-scale integration—are assessed in light of emerging approaches aimed at fault-tolerant quantum computing. As the field moves from the NISQ era toward fault-tolerant quantum computing, we capture the defining hardware achievements and characteristics of current superconducting processors, while examining the ongoing efforts and challenges in overcoming NISQ-era limitations. These developments offer critical insights into the path toward scalable quantum systems and their transformative impact on future technologies, while also underscoring the strategic and societal considerations that require balancing innovation with responsible oversight and thoughtful governance.
Abstract Quantum computing leverages fundamental quantum-mechanical phenomena—most notably superposition, entanglement, and quantum tunneling—to perform computations in ways that differ fundamentally from classical digital processing. Compared to conventional computing architectures, quantum systems promise significant reductions in computational time and potentially lower energy consumption for specific classes of problems. These advantages, combined with advances in nanoscale engineering and the slowing of traditional hardware scaling trends such as Moore’s Law, have led to substantial commercial and national-security-driven investments in quantum technologies over the past decade. A major milestone was reached when Google announced the experimental demonstration of “quantum supremacy,” showing that a quantum processor could execute a specific computational task infeasible for a classical supercomputer within practical time constraints. Although the demonstrated problem had no immediate practical application, this achievement marked a crucial step toward the development of quantum systems capable of delivering real-world computational advantages and provided a more precise technical framing of the concept of quantum advantage. Despite the fact that the mathematical foundations, programming models, and principal quantum algorithms were established in the 1990s, quantum computing remained largely confined to a specialized research community for decades. Today, the increasing accessibility of cloud-based quantum hardware calls for a broader dissemination of implementation-oriented knowledge among researchers and practitioners in computer science, software engineering, and related fields. The quantum programming paradigm differs fundamentally from classical programming models and often relies on physical and algebraic notations that may pose barriers to traditionally trained computer scientists. This series of articles provides a self-contained and concise introduction to quantum computing and its core algorithms, with a strong emphasis on practical implementation. Given that real quantum processors—such as those accessible via the IBM quantum ecosystem—are now available as cloud services, experimental validation can be conducted both on simulators and on actual hardware for small-scale inputs. While other platforms such as Rigetti and IonQ also offer cloud-based quantum computing services, this review focuses exclusively on the IBM quantum computing ecosystem.
The field of quantum computing has evolved into a large interdisciplinary community where significant resources are invested worldwide. As a result, accelerated progress is achieved and we are at the beginning of a new age of computation, developing programmable quantum systems towards universal quantum computers. Quantum computers promise to solve certain mathematical problems that are intractable to classical computers. Quantum computing systems are built from the bottom up reaching the limits of what can be classically simulated. The IBM Quantum Development Roadmap describes our vision of creating a quantum computing ecosystem delivering quantum applications through the cloud. This requires developing the entire quantum computing stack starting from the qubit and quantum processor technology, control electronics to software, algorithms and applications for quantum computing, implemented in the cloud and integrated with high performance computing. In this presentation the recent developments of our quantum computing systems and the scientific advances that enabled scaling superconducting quantum processors to 127 qubits are presented. Besides scale, also quality and speed will be discussed building the key metric for measuring the performance of quantum computation. Examples of applications where the computational power of quantum computing could make a difference are provided.
Cloud computing can be revolutionized by quantum computing which will offer the world more computational power than has ever been seen to solve complex issues.Quantum computing coupled with cloud computing enables the remote access to quantum resources, thus greatly minimizing the cost, technical, and operational difficulties of having quantum hardware owned and maintained in the field.The integration makes large-scale data processing, cryptography, and optimization tasks as well as new applications in artificial intelligence efficient in terms of their computation.This work is a review of the existing approaches, system, and systems to quantum cloud computing, the main algorithms, software applications, implementation plans, and real-life examples.We find that quantum cloud computing provides significant enhancements in computational speed and parallelism, scalability, as well as provides the capability to process data securely and to execute quantum circuits remotely.However, there are still a few obstacles such as stability of qubits, error correction, noise reduction, and effective resource utilization, which restrict the practical use of quantum cloud services.The findings indicate that, irrespective of these challenges, quantum computing with the use of cloud computing platforms offers meaningful potentials to scientific discovery, business, and an AI-based innovation.The paper wraps up by noting that further research should be done to enhance the reliability of quantum hardware, optimize quantum algorithms, and design quantum cloud computing security systems, enabling quantum cloud computing to be adopted more broadly as a more transformative model of computation and ensuring that quantum cloud computing can grow sustainably.
Since the late 2010s, quantum computers have become commercially available, and the number of services that users can run remotely via cloud servers is increasing. In Japan, several domestic superconducting quantum computing systems, including our own, began operation in 2023. However, the design of quantum computing systems, especially in the most critical areas near quantum computers, remains largely undisclosed, creating a significant barrier to entry into the quantum computing field. If this situation continues, progress toward standardization, which is essential for guiding quantum computer development, will stall, and it will be difficult to develop a practical quantum computing system that can perform calculations on a supercomputer scale. To address this issue, we propose Open Quantum Toolchain for OPerators and USers (OQTOPUS), a full-stack quantum computing system developed from research with real quantum computers. OQTOPUS is one of the world's largest open-source software projects, covering operational software from cloud-based execution environment construction to system operation. Furthermore, to perform quantum computing effectively and efficiently, it implements key features, such as transpilers, multi-programming, and error mitigation, in an area as close as possible to a quantum computer, an area that system vendors rarely disclose. Finally, this study presents experimental results of applying OQTOPUS to a real quantum computer. OQTOPUS is publicly available on GitHub and will notably lower the barrier to entry into the quantum computing field, contributing to the formation of a quantum computing developer community through open discussion.
The combination of quantum computing elements with cloud services creates quantum cloud computing which provides unmatched abilities to solve complex problems in cryptography and optimization fields as well as artificial intelligence tasks and scientific simulations. The piece details both quantum computing's core operational methods and the construction elements of quantum cloud services and their combination with cloud-based infrastructure systems. This investigation evaluates the major obstacles which involve hardware constraints as well as error reduction requirements together with growth issues and protection problems alongside the requirement for improved quantum computing methods. The research also identifies three emerging possibilities which include post-quantum cryptography and quantum-enhanced AI and quantum simulations that support drug development and climate simulation processes. The article examines emerging trends in quantum cloud computing through analysis of quantum hardware developments along with the evolution of quantum cloud services and legal guidelines and diagnostic frameworks and quantum computing integration with AI and edge computing. The maturation of quantum technologies will make quantum cloud computing a key player in developing next-generation IT frameworks which will establish fresh computational boundaries along with protected digital systems.