SINGAPORE — Tech giant IBM outlined its strategy to help organizations become AI-first enterprises while advancing practical quantum computing during THINK on Tour Singapore on July 21, company executives told Philippine journalists in separate media roundtable discussions at the Marina Bay Sands Expo and Convention Center.
The discussions expanded on announcements made during IBM’s annual Asia Pacific flagship conference, where the company unveiled its blueprint for helping organizations adopt artificial intelligence (AI) at scale through trusted AI, hybrid cloud infrastructure and digital sovereignty. The event also featured new AI technologies, enterprise software and strategic collaborations across the region.
The first roundtable focused on quantum computing, with IBM Fellow and Chief Technology Officer for IBM Quantum Oliver Dial discussing the industry’s progress toward practical enterprise applications and Southeast Asia’s growing participation in quantum research.
Dial said IBM remained on track to demonstrate verified quantum advantage before the end of the year, referring to computing problems in which quantum systems outperform classical computers under conditions that can be independently verified.
“We’re still confident we will see verified quantum advantage ... before the end of this year,” Dial said.
He said current demonstrations continue to focus on specially designed scientific problems because researchers must be able to verify the correctness of the results independently before they can establish a quantum advantage over conventional computing.
Dial also highlighted IBM’s work with the Cleveland Clinic using sample-based quantum diagonalization (SQD), an algorithm developed for molecular simulations. Researchers recently simulated a protein system containing more than 12,000 atoms, producing results that were about 200 times more accurate than previous quantum-centric molecular simulations, although the best classical computing methods continue to outperform quantum systems for such workloads.
IBM executives also pointed to Southeast Asia as one of the company’s earliest regions for quantum collaboration.
Regional officials said IBM has worked with the National University of Singapore through its Quantum Network since 2020 and is expanding collaboration with universities and government agencies across Southeast Asia. Interest in the technology has accelerated over the past year as governments prepare both for future quantum computing applications and for the adoption of quantum-safe cryptography.
Asked about concerns that quantum computing could eventually break today’s encryption systems, Dial said standardized quantum-safe cryptographic algorithms already exist and should be adopted before cryptographically relevant quantum computers become available.
“The solutions to these problems are ready,” he said, adding that IBM does not expect quantum computers capable of breaking current encryption standards to emerge until well beyond 2035.
IBM’s current roadmap targets the public release of Starling, its fault-tolerant quantum computer, in 2029. Dial said the system is expected to support significant scientific workloads but will not yet possess enough logical qubits or computational depth to threaten modern encryption.
The second roundtable shifted to enterprise AI, where Sriram Raghavan, general manager for IBM Software, India and IBM Software Innovation Lab, said organizations must move beyond experimenting with AI models and begin integrating AI into business operations.
“Once you have intelligence, what do you need to do? You need to act on the intelligence,” Raghavan said. “You need to make sure your enterprises, your business processes, your systems, your applications, your workflows — they are ready for the infusion of AI.”
He said many organizations continue to rely on legacy systems that were not designed for AI-driven workflows, making modernization essential before businesses can fully benefit from agentic AI.
Raghavan highlighted IBM Bob, the company’s AI software development partner, as an example of how enterprises are beginning to deploy AI agents throughout the software development life cycle. Rather than simply generating code, Bob assists with product planning, software development, testing, documentation and quality management while integrating with existing enterprise development tools.
According to Raghavan, IBM has deployed Bob internally to more than 150,000 employees. In one internal implementation, the company reported a 70-percent reduction in onboarding time, a 40-percent increase in test coverage and a threefold increase in development velocity.
He said the software industry is entering an era in which billions of applications and autonomous AI agents will operate across enterprise environments, requiring organizations to adopt new approaches to governance, risk management and operations.
To support that transition, IBM demonstrated its Concert platform, which maps hybrid IT environments, identifies operational and compliance issues, and recommends or automates corrective actions through AI-assisted workflows under human supervision.
The announcements complement IBM’s broader strategy presented during THINK on Tour Singapore, where the company said organizations would need trusted AI, AI-ready data and an open hybrid digital foundation with digital sovereignty to deploy AI across enterprise operations at scale by the end of the decade.
