IBM, U of I renew and expand Illinois institute focused on AI, quantum computing

The University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign and IBM are renewing the IBM-Illinois Discovery Accelerator Institute, a partnership first launched in 2021.

The institute will focus on artificial intelligence and supercomputing.

"We're ushering in the next chapter of quantum-AI supercomputing research, and the next wave of world-changing breakthroughs," Gov. JB Pritzker said Thursday.

Since the Discovery Accelerator Institute launched in 2021, it has delivered more than 230 research publications and advanced 20 active projects across the fields of AI, quantum computing, and other emerging fields — including material discovery and sustainability.

The renewed and expanded institute will give Illinois students, researchers, and companies access to some of the world's most advanced computing tools — helping scientists test hypotheses, speed up discoveries, and solve problems in fields such as health care, clean energy, agriculture, and manufacturing, according to the governor's office.

In the five years to come, the institute will grow its research programs, strengthen its partnerships with industry, and expand hands-on training so Illinois residents can build skills for careers in AI and quantum computing.

"The benefits that emanate from here will reach across the institute, across Illinois, and really across the entire world," Pritzker said.

Quantum computing uses the properties of quantum mechanics to solve problems that classical computers cannot. Quantum computers encode information in qubits, described by IBM as the equivalent in a way of the traditional bit used in old-fashioned computers to encode data in binary.

While bits in classical computing revolve around voltage levels, qubits are usually created by "manipulating and measuring quantum particles (the smallest known building blocks of the physical universe), such as photons, electrons, trapped ions, superconducting circuits and atoms," IBM explained.

This makes for much faster and more powerful computers.