LUMI-Q consortium one step closer to its quantum computer

The hosting agreement was signed in Luxembourg for the acquisition and operation of a quantum computer by the international LUMI-Q consortium. It will be installed at IT4Innovations National Supercomputing Center in Ostrava, Czechia, in 2024 and become the first Czech quantum computer, which will also be available to the European research community.

The hosting agreement was officially signed for the acquisition and operation of the quantum computer of the European LUMI-Q consortium at the IT4Innovations National Supercomputing Centre in Ostrava, Czechia. The signed agreement with the EuroHPC Joint Undertaking governs the roles, rights, and obligations of the parties. The procurement process for the quantum computer will be managed directly by the EuroHPC JU and launched shortly. The investment costs for the procurement of the quantum computer are planned to amount to a maximum of EUR 7 million. It will be 50% co-financed by the EuroHPC JU budget under the Digital Europe Programme (DEP) and 50% from the contributions of the member countries of the LUMI-Q consortium.

– Signing the agreement to host the LUMI-Q quantum computer in the Czech Republic is an important milestone not only for the Czech research community in the field of quantum computers and algorithms but also represents a significant step towards developing European quantum computing resources. Together with other European partners, we are creating an important element of future scientific progress in quantum computing and its applications, said Branislav Jansik, IT4Innovations` Supercomputing Services Director and the coordinator of the LUMI-Q project.

The LUMI-Q consortium, which brings together 9 European countries: Belgium, Czechia, Denmark, Finland, Germany, the Netherlands, Norway, Poland, and Sweden aims to provide academic and industrial users with a quantum computer based on superconducting qubits with a star-shaped topology. Its advantage is that it minimises the number of so-called swap operations and thereby enables the execution of very complex quantum algorithms. The assumption is that it will contain at least 12 qubits. This quantum computer will be directly connected to the EuroHPC supercomputer KAROLINA, located at IT4Innovations in Ostrava. In addition, the plan is to connect it to other EuroHPC supercomputers, especially those hosted by other members of the LUMI-Q consortium, such as the most powerful supercomputer in Europe, LUMI, and the supercomputer Helios that will be located in Krakow, Poland.

– LUMI-Q builds upon the successful LUMI model, in that several consortium member states gain access to the common LUMI-Q quantum computer by pooling our resources. Additionally, as 50% of the cost of the LUMI-Q quantum computer is covered by the EuroHPC JU, the quantum computer is made available to users across Europe. Our goal is to provide these quantum resources to academia and industry alike, just as in the case of the classical supercomputing resources of LUMI, says CSC’s Managing Director Kimmo Koski.

Quantum computers have the revolutionary potential to bring a new approach to computing and solving computationally extremely complex problems. Unlike classical computers that work with binary bits, quantum computers use quantum bits (qubits) to perform parallel computations and manipulate quantum phenomena such as superposition and quantum entanglement. This gives them a unique ability to efficiently solve some problems that are too difficult for classical computers.

These may include optimisation problems for solving the electronic structure of new materials or traffic and port management logistics. Several other applications are currently being developed and can be found in almost all scientific and computational domains, such as the automotive industry, the development of new electric batteries, energy, finance, pharmaceutics, quantum chemistry, cryptography, quantum machine learning and many more. Quantum computers have the potential to dramatically shape scientific research and technological development in all fields, from physics and chemistry to artificial intelligence and bioinformatics.

– Through the LUMI-Q resources, European users will get access to a new type of computational infrastructure that combines some of the most powerful supercomputers in Europe with the latest in European quantum computing technology. Through quantum-accelerated high-performance computing, research and development can take almost unimaginable leaps of innovation. We are excited to be part of and committed to this development, comments Mikael Johansson, Manager for Quantum Technologies at CSC.

Boilerplate

The LUMI-Q consortium will provide a European-wide quantum computing environment integrated with the EuroHPC infrastructure. The proposed concept allows the integration of the targeted EuroHPC quantum computer into multiple EuroHPC supercomputers, including KAROLINA in Czechia, LUMI in Finland, and EHPCPL in Poland. The LUMI-Q consortium brings together 9 European countries: Belgium, Czechia, Denmark, Finland, Germany, the Netherlands, Norway, Poland, and Sweden.

LUMI-Q consortium partners:
• Coordinator: VSB – Technical University of Ostrava, IT4Innovations National Supercomputing Center, Czechia
• CSC – IT Center for Science, Finland
• VTT Technical Research Centre of Finland Ltd, Finland
• Chalmers University of Technology, Sweden
• Danish Technical University, Denmark
• Danish e-Infrastructure Cooperation, DeIC, Denmark
• Academic Computer Centre Cyfronet AGH, Poland
• Nicolaus Copernicus Astronomical Center, Poland
• Nordic e-Infrastructure Collaboration
• Sigma2 AS, Norway
• Simula Research Lab, Norway
• SINTEF AS, Norway
• Deutsches Zentrum für Luft- und Raumfahrt, Germany
• University of Hasselt, Belgium
• TNO Netherlands Organisation for Applied Scientific Research, the Netherlands
• SURF BV, the Netherlands

Image on the top: Branislav Jansik, IT4Innovations` Supercomputing Services Director and the coordinator of the LUMI-Q project and EuroHPC JU’s Executive Director Anders Dam Jensen at the signing ceremony on 27 June 2023.