Insider Brief
- Quantinuum has achieved a Quantum Volume of 8,388,608 on its H2 system, completing a five-year goal to increase the metric tenfold annually.
- Quantum Volume, developed by IBM, measures a quantum computer’s usable performance by combining qubit count, connectivity, error rates, and coherence time.
- Quantinuum claims the highest published QV to date and plans to exceed this performance with its upcoming Helios system.
Quantinuum says it has reached a Quantum Volume of more than 8 million, completing a self-imposed five-year roadmap to scale performance by a factor of ten each year, offering it as evidence for its claim as a quantum industry performance leader.
According to a company blog post, Quantinuum’s latest machine, the H2 system, achieved a Quantum Volume (QV) of 2²³, or 8,388,608. (The benchmarking details are available here.) Quantum Volume is a metric that captures not only the number of qubits in a machine but also their quality, factoring in properties like coherence time, error rates, gate fidelity and connectivity.
You could think of Quantum Volume as the horsepower of a quantum computer, so it’s not just how many cylinders (qubits) it has, but how well all the parts work together under pressure. It captures not just size, but how reliably and efficiently the machine runs when asked to do real work. Just as a car with more horsepower can handle more mountainous terrain and lug more weight, a higher Quantum Volume means the quantum computer can likely solve more complex problems, more accurately.
The metric was originally developed by IBM to provide a more comprehensive gauge of system capability during the noisy intermediate-scale quantum (NISQ) era.
Quantinuum selected Quantum Volume as its headline metric in 2020, pledging to increase it tenfold annually. According to the post, no other company has made or met a similar public performance goal. With the H2 system’s latest result, Quantinuum says it has done both, completing the program ahead of schedule and reaching what it describes as the highest published Quantum Volume in the industry.
“We chose QV because we believe it’s a great metric. For starters, it’s not gameable, like other metrics in the ecosystem,” the team writes. “Also, it brings together all the relevant metrics in the NISQ era for moving towards fault tolerance, such as gate fidelity and connectivity. “
The company’s benchmark effort was led in part by Dr. Charlie Baldwin, a specialist in quantum hardware performance with academic ties to researcher Ivan H. Deutsch, according to the post. Quantinuum credits Baldwin’s work as a key reason it can substantiate its performance claims with empirical results.
In addition to achieving the highest known QV, the post highlights that Quantinuum also operates what it calls the industry’s most benchmarked machines. According to internal comparisons published in a performance table, the company outlines how its commercial systems stack up against other quantum architectures, offering a breakdown of specifications and demonstrated capabilities. The blog does not name direct competitors in the table, but points to the company’s continued dominance across a range of performance categories.
Transparency on Progress
Quantinuum says it has maintained transparency by consistently publishing benchmark results and performance papers, supporting its claim with prior milestones in quantum computing. These include demonstrating random circuit sampling, certified randomness, quantum magnetism simulations and high-fidelity teleportation of logical qubits. Each of these, the company argues, reflects real progress toward scalable, fault-tolerant quantum computing.
The post emphasizes that Quantum Volume, while still an early-era metric, is difficult to manipulate. Quantinuum positions it as one of the most robust indicators of useful computational performance in the absence of large-scale error correction. The company notes that the metric remains particularly valuable because it integrates several performance variables rather than focusing on a single factor like qubit count.
Looking ahead, the company said its next-generation quantum system, named Helios, will exceed H2 in performance. While no timeline is given for Helios’ launch, Quantinuum signals that it intends to continue its performance lead. According to the post, future systems will not only scale in size but also improve in quality—a trend the company argues differentiates it from others focused on simply adding more qubits.
“We finished our five-year commitment to Quantum Volume ahead of schedule, showing that we can do more than just maintain performance while increasing system size. We can improve performance while scaling,” Quantinuum’s Senior Director of Engineering Brian Neyenhuis said, according to the post.
The company describes its strategy as a race against its own benchmarks rather than external competitors. With the QV goal now met, it frames its future roadmap as an effort to extend its leadership in both fidelity and scalability.
The team writes: “As the undisputed industry leader, we’re racing against no one other than ourselves to deliver higher performance and to better serve our customers.”