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IBM’s newest quantum-computing chip, revealed on 15 November, established a milestone of sorts: it packs in 127 quantum bits (qubits), making it the first such device to reach 3 digits. But the achievement is only one step in an aggressive agenda boosted by billions of dollars in investments across the industry.

The ‘Eagle’ chip is a step towards IBM’s goal of creating a 433-qubit quantum processor next year, followed by one with 1,121 qubits named Condor by 2023. Such targets echo those that for decades the electronics industry has set itself for miniaturizing silicon chips, says Jerry Chow, head of IBM’s experimental quantum-computing group at the Thomas J. Watson Research Center in Yorktown Heights, New York.

Other companies — including technology behemoths Google and Honeywell, and a slew of well-funded start-up companies — have similarly ambitious plans. Ultimately, they aim to make quantum computers capable of performing certain tasks that are out of reach of even the largest supercomputers that use classical technology.

“It’s good to have ambitious goals, but what matters is whether they can execute their plans,” says quantum information theorist John PR eSkill at the California Institute of Technology in Pasadena.