# IBM says DARPA selected its quantum program for hardware testing

_Published Thursday, October 8, 2026 at 1:07 AM EDT · Science · Latest · Tier 2 — Notable_

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IBM announced that DARPA selected it for Stage C of the Quantum Benchmarking Initiative, moving its approach to a fault-tolerant quantum computer from plan assessment into independent hardware testing. Fault tolerance uses error correction to keep quantum computations reliable.

DARPA's team will test hardware, technology, systems engineering and architectures. The program seeks to determine whether an industrially useful system whose computational value exceeds its cost can be built by 2033. IBM expects to deliver its first fault-tolerant system in 2029; the earlier stages assessed technical concepts, research plans and risk mitigation.

## Sources

- [AOL](https://www.aol.com/articles/ibm-advances-stage-c-darpa-213000000.html)

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Canonical: https://techandbusiness.org/newswire/jNMh0j424mHxwkVsfwu2Wi
Published: 2026-10-08T05:07:23.809Z
Story chronology: 2026-10-07T21:30:00.000Z
Retrieved: 2026-10-08T07:56:53.414Z
Publisher: Tech & Business (techandbusiness.org)