IBM Quantum
Superconducting · Founded 2016 · Yorktown Heights, NY · Public (IBM)
The most-published roadmap in the industry. IBM commits publicly to dated targets and updates the roadmap yearly. Mostly hits qubit-count targets; error-correction milestones have slipped. The Heron and Nighthawk generations represent real progress on 2-qubit error.
Delivered
6
Late
1
Missed
1
Softened
1
Pending
4
Delivery rate (excluding pending): 73%
Our verdict
Of all the vendors, IBM is by far the most legible about its roadmap. They commit publicly, slip publicly, and update yearly. The qubit-count targets ship close to on time; the 'quantum advantage / utility' framing has been more PR than substance — the Kim et al. 2023 result was a real engineering achievement but the 'advantage' was eaten by classical simulation within a year. Trust the dated processor names; raise an eyebrow at vague 'application' targets.
Claims by target year
Target: 2021 · Announced 2020-09-15
Eagle: 127-qubit processor
Outcome: IBM Eagle (127 qubits) announced November 2021, on schedule.
Target: 2022 · Announced 2020
Osprey: 433-qubit processor
Outcome: Osprey (433 qubits) announced November 2022, on schedule.
Target: 2023 · Announced 2020
Condor: 1,121-qubit processor
Outcome: Condor (1,121 qubits) announced December 2023. IBM also unveiled Heron (133 qubits, much lower error) as the production direction.
Target: 2023 · Announced 2020
1,000-application library across industry verticals
Outcome: Qiskit application packages exist but the '1,000 application' goal was never publicly tracked to delivery — quietly dropped from later roadmaps.
Target: 2024 · Announced 2023
Heron r2: improved 2-qubit gate fidelity
Outcome: Heron r2 (156 qubits, 3×10⁻³ 2-qubit error) released 2024 Q4 with reduced crosstalk and tunable couplers.
Target: 2024 · Announced 2022
Dynamic circuits with mid-circuit measurement and feed-forward
Outcome: Mid-circuit measurement and classical feed-forward shipped 2023; full dynamic-circuit support with classical control flow rolled out through 2024.
Target: 2025 · Announced 2023
Kookaburra / Crossbill: 4,158-qubit multi-chip system
Outcome: IBM pivoted in 2024-25 toward Nighthawk (1,500 qubits with improved gates) and modular multi-chip systems. The 4,158-qubit Kookaburra target was effectively retired in favor of error-correction-focused architectures.
Target: 2025 · Announced 2024
Demonstrate error-corrected logical qubit
Outcome: Demonstrated a [[12,2,4]] gross code with two logical qubits in 2024-2025. Not yet at break-even with physical qubits, but a real logical-qubit demonstration.
Target: 2025 · Announced 2022
Quantum advantage demonstration (with error mitigation)
Outcome: IBM published the Nature 2023 'quantum utility' paper (Kim et al.) demonstrating a 127-qubit kicked-Ising simulation with error mitigation outperforming tensor-network simulation at certain depths. The interpretation was challenged within months by improved classical methods (Tindall, Fishman, Stoudenmire, Sels 2024; Begusic, Gray, Chan 2024). IBM did demonstrate; the 'advantage' qualifier is disputed.
Target: 2025 · Announced 2020
Frictionless quantum-classical compute integration (Qiskit Runtime)
Outcome: Qiskit Runtime (released 2021) and Qiskit Patterns / Quantum Serverless (2023-2024) shipped the hybrid-execution stack.
Target: 2026 · Announced 2023
Nighthawk: 1,500-qubit processor
Outcome: Nighthawk (1,500 qubits) announced November 2025 with 2×10⁻³ 2-qubit error rate.
Target: 2029 · Announced 2024
Starling: 200 logical qubits running 100M gates
Target: 2033 · Announced 2024
Blue Jay: 2,000 logical qubits running 1B gates
Last verified: 2026-05-24