Chinese web giant Alibaba Group Holding Ltd.’s cloud arm is adding quantum computing to its growing list of services.

Alibaba Cloud said it’s partnering with the Chinese Academy of Sciences to host a superconducting cloud computer powered by an 11-quantum-bit processor. That makes it the second-fastest quantum computing service in the world, behind IBM Corp.’s 20-qubit quantum computer service, which was launched last year.

The company’s cloud computing customers can access its quantum computer to run code and perform experiments, said Shi Yaoyun, Alibaba Cloud’s chief quantum technology scientist. He added that the new service will help pave the way for future improvements to quantum computing across the world.

“By introducing quantum computing services on cloud, we make it easier for the teams to experiment with quantum applications in a real environment to better understand the property and performance of the hardware, as well as leading the way in developing quantum tools and software globally,” Shi said.

The Bloch sphere is a representation of a qubit, the fundamental building block of quantum computers. Source: Wikipedia

Whereas traditional computers use binary digits or “bits,” which can be represented as 1 or 0, quantum computing uses “qubits” that can be “superpositioned,” allowing them to be represented as 1s, 0s or both states at the same time.

In addition, qubits can use a method called superdense coding that allows them to hold two bits simultaneously. So two superpositioned bits held in one qubit means they can process four times the data of ordinary computers.

The other important distinction of quantum computers is something called “entanglement,” or the ability of qubits to correlate with each other so that each is aware of the state of all the others. That means that quantum computers grow in power exponentially as qubits are added. So, in theory, a 200-qubit system is 2,200 times as powerful as a 100-qubit system. By comparison, the power of classic digital computers grow linearly. In short, quantum computers are far more powerful than their classic cousins, able to perform intense calculations many, many times faster.

With its rollout of quantum computing services, Alibaba is joining IBM in an effort to make the nascent technology more accessible to academic and business users. The hope is that growing adoption will lead to more innovation, accelerating the rise of quantum computing further and faster.

It remains to be seen if Alibaba’s quantum computing service will have real business implications, however. As John Dinsdale, chief analyst and managing director of Synergy Research Group explained, the announcement probably isn’t going to be a game-changer, even if the company has beaten rivals like Amazon Web Services Inc. to the post.

“Most major cloud providers are active in quantum computing, but I think that running large commercial services that really move the needle in terms of business development are still a long way in the future,” Dinsdale said.

Alibaba said it has been working on its quantum computers for several years, and in July 2015 it established the first quantum computing laboratory in Asia. The company also helped to create the first cloud-based quantum cryptography method. In May 2017 it participated in the development of the world’s first photon quantum computer.

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