IBM Quantum has released Nighthawk r2, its fastest quantum processor to date, on September 2, 2026. The 120-qubit chip pairs a new dissipative reset architecture with mid-circuit dynamic reset to lift circuit throughput 25x above the current Heron fleet, and IBM says it has already produced accurate observable estimates on circuits containing more than 7,500 gates, an important milestone on the 2026 IBM Quantum Roadmap.
Dissipative reset unlocks 100,000 circuits per second
Traditional IBM processors use a measurement-and-flip conditional reset that leaves qubits idle for hundreds of microseconds between shots. Nighthawk r2 replaces that with a per-qubit dissipative reset gadget: each programmable qubit is linked through a high-dynamic-range tunable coupler to a cold environment that pulls it back to the ground state in about 25 nanoseconds. The system now runs more than 100,000 circuits per second, versus roughly 4,000 on Heron, and cuts initialization error by about 25x while keeping Heron-class gate fidelity.
458 physical elements and a square lattice
Nighthawk r2 combines 120 programmable qubits, 218 dedicated couplers and 120 reset elements for 458 physical quantum elements — the most complex quantum processor IBM has ever put into production. The square-lattice architecture connects most qubits to four nearest neighbors, and IBM researchers have used it to rerun UChicago's doped Clifford sampling advantage experiments and to deliver a 12x speedup on neutron-scattering simulations that now finish in about 60 seconds.
Built for error correction, available now
Because the new reset works mid-circuit as well as between shots, Nighthawk r2 is also positioned as a platform for quantum error correction research, enabling repeated use of auxiliary qubits in space-time checks and other dynamic-circuit protocols. The processor is live on the IBM Quantum Platform today, extending the roadmap that also includes IBM's $10 billion Starling roadmap, its HRL Laboratories silicon-spin-qubit acquisition, and the Yonsei University Nighthawk installation announced in August.
Reporting based on coverage from IBM Research, The Quantum Insider and Tom's Hardware.