As impressive as this year’s updates are, IBM is looking to next year as the real turning point. The company’s roadmap says that next year’s quantum processor, the Condor, will boast a stunning 1,121 qubits. Also on the cards is a modular processor called the Heron, which can stack multiple 133-qubit units together to make more powerful quantum processors.

And finally, the IBM Quantum System Two will be released towards the end of 2023. This modular system will form the framework of the company’s quantum supercomputers, housing multiple processors with communication links between them. These are all stepping stones on the path towards IBM’s plans of building a quantum system with over 4,000 qubits by 2025.

Eoin Treacy's view

Alphabet’s Hartmut Neven, claimed a few years ago was that quantum computing was progressing at a double exponent pace. To put that in context an exponential pace is 1,2,4,8,16,32. An exponential exponential pace is 1.2,4,16, 256, 65,536.  

IBM’s Eagle platform had 127 qubits last year and this year’s Osprey has 433 which is 3.4 times larger but has far more computing power. The move next year to several thousand qubits suggests the pace of innovation is following through on Neven’s ambitious estimate from 2019.
IBM is back testing the upper side of a four-year range and a sustained move above $150 would confirm a return to medium-term demand dominance.

Alphabet’s revenue is still heavily influenced by the outlook for advertising spend. The long-term growth potential from its many R&D projects are not in the price. The share is currently unwinding a deep short-term oversold condition.