June 23 2025 -- Today,under the Polish Presidency of the Council of the European Union, EuroHPC JU inaugurated PIAST-Q in Poznań, Poland. This first inauguration of a EuroHPC quantum computer marks a milestone in building a European quantum computing infrastructure.

The inauguration ceremony was hosted by the Poznańskie Centrum Superkomputerowo-Sieciowe (PCSS), Poznań Supercomputing and Networking Center, in Poland.

The event was attended by Dariusz Standerski, Secretary of State at Poland’s Ministry of Digital Affairs; Rafal Duczmal, Chair of the EuroHPC JU Governing Board; and Anders Jensen, the Executive Director of EuroHPC Joint Undertaking.

Named after the Piast dynasty, the first historical ruling dynasty of Poland, PIAST-Q is a laser-based trapped-ion quantum computer, hosted and operated by PCSS and supplied by AQT, in Innsbruck, Austria.

PIAST-Q will offer a performance of 20 physical qubits along with several unique features for European users:

• high fidelity universal quantum gates - minimising computational errors,
• long coherence times – providing greater circuit depths, and
• all-to-all qubit connectivity – providing greater stability and enabling programmable multi-qubit quantum gates.

Like all other EuroHPC quantum computers currently under deployment, this system will be integrated with high-performance computing (HPC) infrastructure. PIAST-Q will first be coupled with the ALTAIR supercomputer, and later with the PIAST-AI supercomputer, offering European users access to hybrid classical-quantum architecture.

Although the system’s final calibration will continue over the coming months, the inauguration of PIAST-Q represents the completion of the first operational deployment of a EuroHPC quantum computer, the first in a series. The deployment is remarkable for its rapid implementation: the procurement contract was signed less than a year ago, and the delivery and deployment occurred several months ahead of the timeline planned in the contract.

PIAST-Q is expected to offer compute resources to European end-users by the end of the year, enabling hybrid quantum-classical use cases such as quantum optimisation, chemistry, materials science, and machine learning. Primarily aimed at research and innovation, it will be accessible to a broad range of European users from academia and industry to the public sector.

Anders Jensen, Executive Director of the EuroHPC Joint Undertaking:

"Today’s inauguration of PIAST-Q is a major step in Europe’s leap into the quantum era. This milestone not only marks the deployment of our first EuroHPC quantum computer, but also demonstrates our commitment to building a world-class, sovereign quantum computing ecosystem in Europe. With PIAST-Q, we are not just investing in technology, we are investing in European excellence”