IBM Announces Nighthawk r3 Quantum Processor Targeting 520 Qubits

IBM announced its Nighthawk r3 quantum processor on November 11 in Yorktown Heights, New York, outlining a design intended to execute 10,000 quantum operations on 520 programmable qubits. The company plans to link two r3 processors into a single 1,040-qubit system in 2027. “Useful quantum computing hinges on whether results can be delivered with accuracy and speed, both are fundamental,” said Jay Gambetta, director of IBM Research and an IBM Fellow. IBM said r3 retains the square-lattice connectivity and fast operations of its r2 predecessor, while adding 10 chip-to-chip connections it calls l-couplers. The company specifies 2,034 total physical qubits for the r3 design. IBM introduced Nighthawk r2 in September. According to the company, that processor supports more than 7,500 quantum operations on 120 qubits and can produce up to 100,000 samples per second. IBM said clients and partners have run 34 billion circuits on r2, with performance improvements reaching 19 times those of its earlier quantum processors. The announcement also outlined expanded IBM Quantum Platform capabilities that bring quantum workflows and classical high-performance computing into one managed environment. IBM's stated next scaling step is the two-processor system planned for 2027, using the chip-to-chip connections to combine processors.