June 12, 2025 -- Dutch quantum software startup Fermioniq and UK-based quantum computing company OQC have announced the Toshiko Emulator, powered by Fermioniq; an integration of Fermioniq’s emulation platform Ava with OQC Cloud. The integration provides a digital twin of OQC’s Toshiko quantum computer and a scalable tensor-network emulation backend, allowing users to extensively test and debug their quantum applications before implementing them on OQC Toshiko.

Testing and benchmarking quantum algorithms is time consuming, and can be challenging when hardware is in high demand or unavailable due to maintenance. Quantum emulators provide a reliable, always-available alternative that can be used to fine-tune quantum algorithms before running them on the real thing. When used as a digital twin, noise parameters can be customized in order to simulate the noise effects present in real hardware, allowing users to minimize the effect of noise on their algorithms and plan ahead for future performance upgrades.

Accurately simulating noisy quantum computers becomes difficult as the qubit number grows. Faithfully simulating large quantum devices requires using versatile tensor network based emulation tools, such as Ava. Ava can scale far beyond the limits of conventional emulators, providing a unique opportunity for quantum application developers to design, benchmark, and test quantum algorithms with large numbers of qubits.

OQC’s Cloud platform provides immediate and reliable access to OQC’s 32-qubit quantum computer OQC Toshiko alongside documentation, resources and secure collaboration capabilities. The device operates on superconducting qubits implemented within a patented coaxmon architecture and is the world’s first enterprise-ready platform via Tokyo and London. The addition of the Toshiko Emulator, powered by Fermioniq, will allow OQC Cloud users to gain valuable insights into their quantum applications before implementing them on OQC Toshiko.

Offered as an emulation backend on OQC Cloud, users will be able to choose between running their applications on OQC Toshiko itself or a digital twin using noisy tensor network emulation.

Opening up new opportunities for quantum application development

“Ava’s arrival on OQC Cloud is an important step towards closer integration of classical high-performance quantum emulators with state-of-the-art quantum hardware,”  Jörgen Sandig, CEO and co-founder of Fermioniq says. “Ava has successfully been used to accurately simulate challenging quantum circuits on 50-100 qubits, and can seamlessly scale to thousands of qubits for less challenging circuits, all running on the latest NVIDIA Grace Hopper Superchips.”

To access Fermioniq’s emulation tools via OQC Cloud, alongside OQC’s 32-qubit quantum computer, users can request access by signing up to the OQC Cloud platform or, if an existing OQC customer, via their account.

“We are excited to be launching OQC’s emulator, powered by Fermioniq, to our existing QCaaS customers,” Simon Phillips, CTO of OQC says. “It gives customers an additional capability to verify complex experiments before running against live QPU hardware. We're launching with a Toshiko noise model that emulates our 32-qubit QPU, OQC Toshiko; all accessed via the OQC Cloud Platform.”