Espoo, Finland, 26th September 2024 – IQM Quantum Computers (IQM), a global leader in designing, building, and selling superconducting quantum computers, today announced the company has won a contract to deliver the Czech Republic’s first quantum computer to be installed at the IT4Innovations National Supercomputing Centre in Ostrava.  

The contract is part of the European High Performance Computing Joint Undertaking (EuroHPC JU) program. This will be the first quantum computer in an HPC centre that will run on IQM´s unique Star Architecture, where 24 qubits are connected to a central resonator. The proprietary star topology QPU is designed to work more efficiently with IQM´s latest quantum error correction and other complex algorithms.  

Commenting on this announcement, IQM Co-CEO, Mikko Välimäki said: “Winning the first quantum computer delivery in the Czech Republic is a significant milestone for IQM and the entire Central European quantum community. We are extremely excited as this is the first customer system based on our next generation star topology QPU, which is set to shortcut the path to quantum error correction. We are looking forward to working with the IT4Innovations National Supercomputing Centre to push the boundaries of quantum computers further.”

"We are excited to have a quantum computer with the new unique QPU topology. This architecture will significantly improve the efficiency of computations and the scalability of our system. The star topology offers optimal connections between qubits, minimising error rates and increasing the reliability of quantum operations. Thanks to this topology, we can better utilise quantum entanglement and achieve faster and more accurate results in a wide range of applications, from artificial intelligence to complex system simulations," said Branislav Jansík, Supercomputing Services Director at IT4Innovations.

The quantum computer is being built as part of the nine-nation LUMI-Q consortium. It will be available to a wide range of end-users, from the scientific community to industry and the public sector, to actively explore applications and algorithms.

The EuroHPC Joint Undertaking has a budget of around €7 billion for the period 2021-2027 and is funding the procurement of quantum computers for European HPC centres. This will address the growing demand for quantum computing resources from European industry and research institutions, along with the development of a wide range of industrial and scientific applications.

“At IQM, we are proud to be a provider of strategic technology in Europe. Our team has worked hard to make sure that we can deliver on-premises and next-generation quantum computers for high-performance computing centres. This ambitious project will ensure Europe´s sovereignty in this critical technology and pave new ways towards efficient error-correction,” said Dr. Jan Goetz, Co-CEO at IQM Quantum Computers.