EHNINGEN, Germany, Oct. 1, 2024 -- Alongside German Chancellor Olaf Scholz, senior European government officials and European-based global enterprises, IBM today unveiled the first IBM Quantum Data Center located outside of the United States. It is the company's second quantum data center in the world and marks a significant expansion of its fleet of advanced, utility-scale quantum systems available to global users via the cloud.

Now online in Ehningen, Germany, Europe's first IBM Quantum Data Center includes two new utility-scale, IBM Quantum Eagle-based systems, and will soon feature a new IBM Quantum Heron-based system. These systems are capable of performing computations beyond the brute-force simulation capabilities of classical computers.

When the IBM Heron-based system is made available at the IBM Quantum Data Center in Europe, it will be the third IBM Heron installed across IBM's fleet of quantum systems that can be accessed by the company's global quantum network of more than 250 enterprises, universities, research institutions, and organizations. IBM Heron offers up to a 16-fold increase in performance and 25-fold increase in speed over previous IBM quantum computers as they were measured two years ago.

When it is deployed alongside the now-available utility-scale systems installed in the new IBM Quantum Data Center, the IBM Heron-based system will expand the more than a dozen quantum computers IBM currently offers through the cloud – the largest fleet of its kind in the world.

"The opening of the IBM Quantum Data Center in Ehningen is good news for Germany. It will serve as a location for innovation and business growth, and is an expression of investors' confidence in the German market. IBM enriches the German quantum computing landscape with this new data center. The German government is providing targeted support for the development of quantum technologies. It is thereby driving forward the development of competencies and capacities in quantum computing in order to promote a robust ecosystem around the development of quantum computers," said Olaf Scholz, Chancellor of the Federal Republic of Germany.

"The opening of our first IBM Quantum Data Center in Europe marks a pivotal moment for the region's technological development, demonstrates our commitment to Europe, and underscores the key role of collaboration with industry, academia and policymakers for a pan-European quantum ecosystem. This state-of-the-art facility will foster innovation around quantum computing, creating new opportunities for talent attraction and ensuring that Europe remains at the forefront of global technological advancements," said Ana Paula Assis, General Manager and Chairman of IBM Europe, Middle East and Africa.

IBM recently published evidence that Qiskit is the world's leading and most performant quantum software. Together with access to IBM's advanced quantum hardware, IBM's ecosystem of users across Europe and globally can access tools and systems that can help them to more easily advance the discovery of algorithms that could open the doorway to useful quantum computing and reach quantum advantage: the point at which a quantum computer can solve a practical problem better than any classical method.

The IBM Quantum Data Center in Europe can be accessed through the IBM Quantum Platform, continuing IBM's mission to enable the development of quantum computing use cases and to support clients as they press forward with algorithm discovery in the era of quantum utility, and towards quantum advantage.