Quantum computing has been a buzzword graveyard. Too many press releases. Too few breakthroughs.

Until now. Oliver Dial, CTO of IBM Quantum, joins us to talk about the chip that changes everything: Starling.This is IBM’s first processor designed for real-time quantum error correction, the holy grail that turns flaky quantum prototypes into reliable, industrial-grade machines.

Forget qubit counts. Starling is built to scale.

Backed by $30 billion in R&D, this isn’t science fiction. This is IBM swinging for fault tolerance by 2029, with a roadmap targeting a 1:1000 ratio of logical to physical qubits. Translation? The first quantum systems that might actually matter.

Inside this episode:

- Why error mitigation is not enough, and what comes next

- What a logical qubit really is, and why you need thousands of physical ones to protect it

- How IBM plans to leap from lab demos to world-changing simulations

- What quantum means for chemistry, materials, finance, and optimization

- Why Starling is going to work

And no, you don’t need a PhD to follow this. If you’re curious, you’re qualified.

This is Thinking on Paper. We break it down so you walk away actually understanding why fault tolerance is the moment quantum grows up, and how IBM plans to get there first.Please enjoy the show. And share with a curious friend.