According to a timeline from IBM, in 1927, a German physicist named Werner Heisenberg introduced the concept of the uncertainty principle, which means a quantum particle is unpredictable (IBM 2020).
In 1970 a discussion between Stephen Wiesner and Charlie Bennet contained the use of the first phrase “quantum information theory.” It also included the first suggestion for using entanglement as a communication resource, describing principles of superdense coding (IBM 2020).
Peter Shor in 1994, factored a number into its primes efficiently on a quantum computer, a problem that takes “an exponentially long time” to solve. This algorithm began an exploration into theoretical and experimental interest into the quantum computing field (IBM 2020).
Quantum error correction occurred in 1995. This theory showed that it was possible to have redundances to protect against environmental noise; this made it possible for the physical realisation of quantum computing more tangible (IBM 2020).
An IBM researcher named David DiVincenzo, in 1996, outlined five minimal requirements for creating a quantum computer. A well-defined scalable qubite array, an ability to initialise the state of the qubits to a pure fiducial state, a universal set of quantum gates, long coherence times, much longer than the gate-operation time, single-qubit measurement (IBM 2020).
In 1997 the first topological quantum error-correcting code, known as surface code, was proposed by professor Alexei Kitaev (IBM 2020).
Peter Shor’s algorithm was demonstrated in a real quantum computing experiment in 2001 (IBM 2020).
Robert Schoelkopf and his associates invented circuit QED in 2004. A way of studying interactions of photons and artificial quantum objects on a chip. This work established standards of coupling and reading out superconducting qubits (IBM 2020).
In 2007 Schoelkopf and his associates also invented a type of superconducting qubit designed to reduce sensitivity to charge noise (IBM 2020).
Coherence time improvement, the duration that a qubit retained a quantum state was improved in 2012 (IBM 2020).
IBM created the first quantum computing platform in 2016, accessible by desktop and mobile devices, enabled users to run experiments and find other uses for quantum computing (IBM 2020).
In 2017 IBM launched IMB Quantum, the first industry initiative to build commercially available universal quantum computing systems. IBM scientists simulated the largest molecule to date, Beryllium (IBM 2020).
In 2019 IBM Quantum, designed and built the world’s first integrated quantum system for commercial use, known as IBM Q System One. It enables universal approximate superconducting quantum computers to operate beyond research lab confines for the first time (IBM 2020).