The IBM Q Network is a community of Fortune 500 companies, startups, academic institutions and research labs working to advance quantum computing and explore practical applications.

IBM announced that Florida State University, Stony Brook University, the University of Notre Dame, Virginia Tech, and the University of Tokyo will have direct access to IBM Q's most-advanced quantum computing systems for teaching, and faculty and student research projects that advance quantum information science and explore early applications, as academic partners.

Several institutions will collaborate with the IBM Q Network on focused research projects with students and faculty to advance the foundational science, technology, and software required to enable more capable quantum systems.

These university research collaborators include Duke University, Harvard University, Princeton University, the University of Colorado Boulder, the University of Waterloo, as well as the University of Chicago and the University of Illinois, through the Chicago Quantum Exchange.

For example, Duke University is looking into “quantum systems to build quantum information devices and sensors” will work with IBM in the area of quantum error correction, an algorithmic method for removing errors in quantum computers, which is expected to be important for future quantum computers regardless of the hardware platform.

Harvard University is working on projects to transform sensing, communications, and computation — while developing the educational platform for quantum engineering and science for the long term.

The University of Waterloo is working with IBM to focus on accelerating collaborative research in quantum algorithms and quantum complexity theory.

The University of Chicago and the University of Illinois are looking into materials, fabrication techniques, algorithms, as well as software and hardware development.

IBM Research Q Network Global Lead Anthony Annunziata said: “Developing practical quantum applications that drive business and scientific breakthroughs require a diverse ecosystem. Partnering with these world-leading academic and research institutions is key as we work to educate, empower, and get the next generation of students ‘quantum ready’ to advance the field.”

Beginning this summer, IBM will host developer boot camps and hackathons for hands-on training of the open source IBM Q Experience cloud services platform, and Qiskit quantum software platform on campus at participating universities.

The IBM Q Network provides its organisations with quantum expertise and resources, quantum software and developer tools, as well as cloud-based access to IBM's most advanced and scalable commercial universal quantum computing systems available. The free and publicly accessible IBM Q Experience supports more than 100,000 users, who have run more than 10 million experiments and published more than 180 third-party research papers. Developers have also downloaded Qiskit, a full-stack, open-source quantum software development kit, more than 160,000 times to create and run quantum computing programs.