October 9, 2026 -- RIKEN and SoftBank Corp. (hereinafter “SoftBank”) have conducted the third open call for the Test User Program (hereinafter “the program”) under the jointly promoted JHPC-quantum project^[1] (hereinafter “the project”), and selected 20 proposals.
The project is intended to research and develop system software for linking quantum computers (QC) and supercomputers (HPC), to use this software to build a quantum-HPC hybrid platform (hereinafter the “platform”), and to construct quantum-HPC hybrid applications (hereinafter “hybrid applications”) using the platform, thereby expanding the range of computationally feasible problems.^Note1)

The program solicits proposals for the research and development of hybrid applications on the platform, with the aim of obtaining feedback on the platform under development, discovering promising hybrid applications, and promoting their practical application; 21 proposals had been selected as of the previous fiscal year.

The third open call was conducted from May 10 to June 30, 2026, and received applications from a wide range of industries and fields—including materials, chemicals, manufacturing, information and communications, and healthcare—from industry, academia, and institutions in Japan and overseas. Applications were reviewed mainly from the perspectives of the specific utilization of the platform, the centrality of HPC use, and the schedule for obtaining results, and 20 new proposals were selected. Regarding those selected proposals that can be made public, the affiliations and proposal fields of the lead proposers are as follows, in order of application:

• Mitsubishi Electric Corporation (Design & Manufacturing / Natural Sciences)
• Chugai Pharmaceutical Co., Ltd. (Medical Care & Drug Discovery)
• Panasonic System Networks R&D Lab. Co., Ltd. (Design & Manufacturing)
• Japan Aerospace Exploration Agency (Natural Sciences)
• Q-HEALTH TECHNOLOGIES PTE. LTD. (Medical Care & Drug Discovery)
• IHI Corporation (Design & Manufacturing)
• Sumitomo Mitsui Banking Corporation (Finance)
• DIC Corporation (Materials)
• Graduate School of Science, The University of Osaka (Natural Sciences)
• Graduate School of Science, Tohoku University (Natural Sciences)
• German Aerospace Center (DLR) (Natural Sciences)
• TISI Inc. (N/A)
• RIKEN Center for Computational Science (Natural Sciences)
• Graduate School of Information Science and Technology, The University of Tokyo (Natural Sciences)
• Algorithmiq SRL (Materials & Drug Discovery)
• Note1) November 22, 2023: Project for integrated use of quantum computers and supercomputers(RIKEN Website)

Future Plans

The selected institutions will conclude a Memorandum of Understanding on Cooperation Regarding the Test User Program for the Quantum-HPC hybrid platform and, accordingly, will be granted accounts for the two different quantum computers used in the project: Quantum Computer “Reimei” ^Note2) and IBM Quantum System Two “ibm_kobe” ^Note3), supercomputer “Fugaku”^[2], and JHPC-quantum GPU supercomputer “ROQUO” ^Note4), so that they can begin developing hybrid applications using the platform.

An overview of the selected proposals will be presented by the lead proposers at the “JHPC-quantum Symposium 2026,” to be held on November 9, 2026. 

The next open call for the program is planned to be conducted in early fiscal year 2027 and will be the final call. In addition, for selected projects where innovative outcomes are expected through large-scale experiments—based on results achieved by the end of fiscal year 2026—the program plans to provide support so that such large-scale experiments can be conducted in early fiscal year 2027. 

RIKEN and SoftBank will continue to promote the project in cooperation with The University of Tokyo and The University of Osaka, working on the construction of the platform and the exploration of hybrid applications. In addition, through the program, they will promote the practical application of hybrid applications and contribute to the social implementation of quantum technology. 

• Note2) February 12, 2025: New quantum computer on the Wako campus(RIKEN Website)
• Note3) June 24, 2025: IBM and RIKEN Unveil First IBM Quantum System Two Outside of the U.S.(IBM Website)
• Note4) JHPC-quantum GPU Supercomputer “ROQUO” 
  A new computing infrastructure for the quantum-HPC Hybrid Platform, introduced as part of the JHPC-quantum Project. It consists of 135 compute nodes equipped with "NVIDIA GB200 NVL4" (540 NVIDIA Blackwell GPUs in total).  
  June 29, 2026: RIKEN’s new platform for quantum-HPC hybrid computing(RIKEN Website)

Supplementary Information

[1] JHPC-quantum
This project was jointly proposed and selected under the call by New Energy and Industrial Technology Development Organization (NEDO) for “Research and Development of a Quantum-Supercomputer Hybrid Platform for Expanding Computationally Feasible Areas,” as part of the Ministry of Economy, Trade and Industry (METI)’s “Project to Strengthen the Infrastructure for Post-5G Information and Communications Systems.” It conducts research and development of the system software and platform for the integrated use of quantum computers and supercomputers. 

[2] Supercomputer “Fugaku”
A Japanese supercomputer jointly developed by RIKEN and Fujitsu. It achieved first place in the world rankings in 2020. Aimed at contributing to Japan’s growth and generating world-leading results by addressing social and scientific challenges in the 2020s, it was launched for shared use in March 2021 as a world-class supercomputer excelling in overall capabilities, including power efficiency, computational performance, user-friendliness, groundbreaking results, and acceleration of big data and AI. Today, “Fugaku” is utilized as an essential high-performance computing infrastructure for realizing Japan’s vision of Society 5.0.