Paris, July 18th, 2024 -- Eviden, the Atos Group business leading in digital, cloud, big data and security, today announced it is supporting the University of Reims Champagne-Ardenne (URCA) through training initiatives to raise awareness of the challenges of quantum computing. URCA will draw on Eviden's long-standing expertise in the sector, through its Qaptiva offering.

While some sectors seem ready to turn to quantum computing for problems now handled by supercomputers, customers' objectives are changing. Demand is shifting from pure research to the development and use of concrete quantum computing applications, in anticipation of the arrival of the first quantum computers.

The University of Reims Champagne-Ardenne (URCA) is acting on behalf of the MesoNET project, which brings together 20 regional computing centers across France, and is led by GENCI. The MesoNET ecosystem will thus be able to take advantage of Eviden's experts' dual knowledge of technology and industrial issues, to train researchers and professionals alike.

Arnaud RENARD, Director of URCA's Centre de Calcul Régional ROMEO, commented: "Within the MesoNET project, the University of Reims Champagne-Ardenne provides researchers, students and industrialists with training programs covering the general areas of HPC. Within the framework of "Specialized Architectures", we support them in experimenting with the very latest technological advances. With this project, Eviden is providing a series of training courses ranging from the fundamentals of quantum computing to quantum programming".

Olivier Hess, Global Quantum Computing Technology Advisor & Head Quantum France, Eviden, Atos Group, commented: "We are delighted to support URCA in understanding and mastering the challenges and technologies associated with quantum computing, the next digital revolution. This project follows on from the recent collaboration between URCA and Eviden, which extended the capabilities of the Romeo supercomputer to meet the growing AI needs of research communities in the Grand-Est region. We are proud of this renewed confidence".

Qaptiva is a complete quantum computing application development environment offered by Eviden, enriched by consulting services and an ecosystem of software and hardware partners. Drawing on Eviden's significant experience in hybrid computing, Qaptiva enables companies, organizations and research centers worldwide to harness the potential of quantum computing and take application development to the next level to solve complex business and scientific problems.