The Galacian Supercomputing Center (CESGA) has announced that it will acquire a ~$15 million quantum computer from Fujitsu.
CESGA, located in northwestern Spain, is expecting the system to be installed later this year. It is being funded by the Galician Innovation Agency of the Xunta de Galicia, and the EU, though not via EuroHPC but as part of the React-EU program which “supports investment projects that foster crisis-repair capacities and contribute to a green, digital and resilient recovery of the economy”.
The system provided by Fujitsu will include a ‘flexible’ quantum computer, a high-performance computer, a quantum algorithm emulator, and a storage system. Details of the hardware have not yet been released.
The most recent update prior to this announcement came with last year’s launch of FinisTerrae III, a 4.4-petaflop supercomputer supplied by Atos and built using Intel and Nvidia-powered systems.
Atos also supplied CESGA with a 30-qubit quantum learning machine, installed in FinisTerrae III, and unsurprisingly the supercomputing center has been increasingly active in the quantum space since.
CESGA created the Galician Quantum Technologies Pole in the summer of 2022, starting with €30 million ($32.2 million) in funding in order to establish Galicia as a “European and international benchmark in quantum computing and communication by 2030,” both in terms of academia and research and in terms of business.
CESGA is also participating in the Quantum Spain project which is working to establish quantum computing infrastructure in the country, and the Complementary Plan for Quantum Communications, a collaboration with the Spanish Government to develop quantum comms infrastructure.
In August 2022, Fujitsu first announced its plan to start jointly offering quantum computers to companies with Riken, starting in April of this year. The companies intend to first build a 64-qubit quantum computer for research organizations by 2024. They then plan to work on the 1,000-qubit machine, which they plan to deliver by 2026.
While this project is not funded by EuroHPC, the European High-Performance Computing Joint Undertaking selected six locations across Europe in October 2022 to host quantum computers in a $100 million project across Europe. The host countries selected are Czechia, Germany, Spain, France, Italy, and Poland. The new quantum computers are expected to be available by the second half of 2023.