Poughkeepsie, NY Revealed as Location of ‘World-Changing’ Project

A huge building being constructed in Poughkeepsie, NY will soon house the most powerful piece of computing technology to ever exist.

IBM announced this week that it would be unleashing the first large-scale, fault-tolerant quantum computer in just a few short years. The technology is expected to give way to incredible advances in artificial intelligence, medicine, finance and other businesses that require massive amounts of data processing.

The new building on the IBM campus will be the home of IBM Quantum Starling, a system that will be able to perform tens of thousands more operations than the quantum computers currently in existence. Starling will, quite literally, change the world as we know it.

The technical specifics of being able to achieve this are explained in a video released yesterday by IBM.

How Does Poughkeepsie's IBM Quantum Starling Work?

In order for a supercomputer of this magnitude to work efficiently, it must be able to quickly correct any errors within its system. Just like a runner who is sprinting, a computer needs to make split-second adjustments so it won't falter and lose its balance. Doing this at such a high level of speed has been a challenge, but one that IBM has found a solution for.

The work being done at the IBM Data Center in Poughkeepsie will make way for the world's first large-scale, fault-tolerant quantum computer. The breakthrough will allow for practical use that is 20,000 times faster than today's most powerful computers. The computing power of Starling would require a quindecillion of today's fastest supercomputers. That's ten to the 48th power.

IBM Quantum Starling is expected to be completed in 2029.