IBM and Delta Airlines have announced a multi-year partnership for the airline to join the IBM Q Network and to explore the potential capabilities of quantum computing to transform customer and employee experience, IBM announced on Wednesday.
"Partnering with innovative companies like IBM is one way Delta stays on the leading edge of tech to better serve our customers and our people, while drawing the blueprints for application across our industry,” said Rahul Samant, Delta’s chief information officer. “We're excited to explore how quantum computing can be applied to address challenges across the day of travel.”
IBM will allow Delta to research at the IBM Q Hub at NC State University with the world’s largest fleet of universal hardware quantum computers for commercial use cases and fundamental research. One such computer is the 53-qubit quantum computer, which has the most qubits of a universal quantum computer available for external access in the industry, to date.
“IBM's focus, since we put the very first quantum computer on the cloud in 2016, has been to move quantum computing beyond isolated lab experiments…We believe a clear advantage will be awarded to early adopters in the era of quantum computing and with partners like Delta, we're already making significant progress on that mission," said Dario Gil, director of IBM Research.
The IBM Q Network includes over 100 Fortune 500 companies, startups, academic institutions and research labs working to advance quantum computing and explore practical applications. Delta is the first Airline to join the IBM Q Network.
About IBM Quantum
IBM Quantum is an industry-first initiative to build commercial universal quantum systems for business and science applications. For more information about IBM's quantum computing efforts, please visit https://www.ibm.com/quantum-computing/.
