International Business Machines (IBM) has become the foremost technology services company in the domestic outsourcing market in India, with revenue crossing the $5 billion in the fiscal year to March, compared with Rs 23,005 crore corresponding period last year.
A report by Financial Express online hinted that the situation was not so rosy in the beginning of the year.
However, the report disclosed that in the global level, International Business Machines Corp reported a bigger-than-expected drop in revenue for the first time in five quarters due to weak demand in its technology services business, its biggest.
According to the online medium, shares of IBM, whose revenue had fallen for 20 quarters in a row, tumbled 4 percent to $163.15 in trading. This is even as the technology company reported a decline in revenue by 2.8 percent to $18.16 billion in the quarter ended March 31 as against analysts’ expectations of an average $18.39 billion revenue drop.
“Earlier, researchers at International Business Machines Corp had developed a new approach for simulating molecules on a quantum computer. The breakthrough, outlined in a research paper to be published in the scientific journal Nature Thursday, uses a technique that could eventually allow quantum computers to solve difficult problems in chemistry and electro-magnetism that cannot be solved by even the most powerful supercomputers today.
“In the experiments described in the paper, IBM researchers used a quantum computer to derive the lowest energy state of a molecule of beryllium hydride. Knowing the energy state of a molecule is a key to understanding chemical reactions. In the case of beryllium hydride, a supercomputer can solve this problem, but the standard techniques for doing so cannot be used for large molecules because the number of variables exceeds the computational power of even these machines”, the online medium reported.
According to the Financial Express report, the IBM researchers created a new algorithm specifically designed to take advantage of the capabilities of a quantum computer that has the potential to run similar calculations for much larger molecules, the company said.
The medium reported further that the problem with existing quantum computers – including the one IBM used for this research, is that they produce errors and as the size of the molecule being analyzed grows, the calculation strays further and further from chemical accuracy.
Jerry Chow, the manager of experimental quantum computing for IBM, was quoted as saying in an interview that the inaccuracy in IBM’s experiments varied between 2 and 4 percent.
