IBM unveils Nighthawk and Loon processors

IBM/Nighthawk

IBM unveiled Nighthawk, a 120-qubit processor designed to achieve quantum advantage by end 2026, and Loon, an experimental chip demonstrating key fault-tolerance components including long-range on-chip couplers for qLDPC codes. IBM maintains its 2029 target for fault-tolerant computing and has already achieved 10x speedup in error-correction decoding.

• Nighthawk enables 30% more circuit complexity than previous processors; supports up to 5,000 two-qubit gates (roadmap: 10,000 by 2027).
• Loon features multiple routing layers and qubit reset technologies between computations, validating error correction implementation.
• Nighthawk delivery expected by end 2025.