IBM Unveils Roadmap to Deliver Starling, the First Large-Scale Fault-Tolerant Quantum Computer by 2029

IBM today mapped the route to building the world's first large-scale, fault-tolerant quantum computer, the IBM Quantum Starling, at a new Quantum Data Center in Poughkeepsie, New York. The announcement marks a seminal point on the journey to practical, scalable quantum computing capable of addressing problems beyond the reach of classical systems.

Starling will carry out 100 million quantum operations on 200 logical qubits 20,000 times the power of quantum devices today and will be finished by 2029. It would require more memory than a quindecillion (10⁴⁸) of today's most powerful supercomputers possess to store to describe its full quantum state.

With IBM's latest Quantum Roadmap, the journey begins in 2025 with IBM Quantum Loon, which will test long-distance qLDPC code couplers in one chip. IBM Quantum Kookaburra follows in 2026 as the first modular processor for the storage and processing of encoded information. IBM Quantum Cockatoo comes by 2027 to link Kookaburra modules by utilizing L-couplers for computational scaling in numerous chips. These quantum strides culminate in the overall system integration of Starling in 2029.

Central to the viability of Starling is IBM's new quantum low-density parity-check (qLDPC) error-correction code that cuts the number of physical qubits needed by approximately 90%. Coinciding with this, a new speedy decoder capable of performing real-time error correction on FPGAs or ASICs has been developed to enable reliable operation at scale.

"IBM is charting the future of quantum computing," said Arvind Krishna, Chairman and CEO. "Our prowess in math, physics, and engineering is forging a way to a fault-tolerant quantum computer that will solve real-world problems and unlock enormous business potential".

Looking forward of Starling, IBM is architecting Blue Jay its future system to perform a billion quantum operations on 2,000 logical qubits by 2033. Meanwhile, IBM expects to achieve quantum advantage as early as 2026, with NISQ-era hardware allowing breakthroughs in chemistry, materials science, and complex‐systems optimization.