SAN JOSE, Calif., March 18, 2024 -- NVIDIA today announced that Japan’s new ABCI-Q supercomputer — designed to advance the nation’s quantum computing initiative — will be powered by NVIDIA platforms for accelerated and quantum computing.

ABCI-Q will enable high-fidelity quantum simulations for research across industries. The high-performance, scalable system is integrated with NVIDIA CUDA-Q, an open-source hybrid quantum computing platform with powerful simulation tools and capabilities to program hybrid quantum-classical systems. The supercomputer is powered by more than 2,000 NVIDIA H100 Tensor Core GPUs in 500+ nodes interconnected by NVIDIA Quantum-2 InfiniBand, the world’s only fully offloadable, in-network computing platform.

Built by Fujitsu at the Global Research and Development center for Business by Quantum-AI Technology (G-QuAT) National Institute of Advanced Industrial Science and Technology (AIST) ABCI supercomputing center ABCI-Q is expected to be deployed early next year and is designed for integration with future quantum hardware.

“Researchers need high-performance simulation to tackle the most difficult problems in quantum computing,” said Tim Costa, director of high performance computing and quantum computing at NVIDIA. “CUDA-Q and the NVIDIA H100 equip pioneers such as those at ABCI to make critical advances and speed the development of quantum-integrated supercomputing.”

“ABCI-Q will let Japanese researchers explore quantum computing technology to test and accelerate the development of its practical applications,” said Masahiro Horibe, deputy director of G-QuAT/AIST. “The NVIDIA CUDA-Q platform and NVIDIA H100 will help these scientists pursue the next frontiers of quantum computing research.”

ABCI-Q is part of Japan’s quantum technology innovation strategy, which aims to create new opportunities for businesses and society to benefit from quantum technology, including through research in AI, energy and biology.

The ABCI-Q system is intended to be a platform for the advancement of quantum circuit simulation and quantum machine learning, the building of classical-quantum hybrid systems, and the development of new algorithms inspired by quantum technology.

NVIDIA and G-QuAT/AIST also plan to collaborate on industrial applications using ABCI-Q.