LUMI-Q Consortium to enable Polish researchers access to quantum computing 

The agreement for the purchase and operation of the quantum computer by the LUMI-Q international consortium was signed on 27th June 2023 in Luxembourg. The computer will be installed at the IT4Innovations National Supercomputing Center in Ostrava, Czech Republic, in 2024 and will also be available to the Polish and European scientific community. The process of purchasing the quantum computer will be directly supervised by EuroHPC JU (European High Performance Computing Joint Undertaking). The investment costs are expected to amount to a maximum of 7 million euros. They will be co-financed in 50% from the EuroHPC JU budget under the Digital Europe Programme and in 50% from contributions from the member countries of the LUMI-Q consortium. 

The LUMI-Q consortium brings together nine European countries (Belgium, Czech Republic, Denmark, Finland, Germany, Netherlands, Norway, Poland, and Sweden) and aims to provide academic and industrial users with a quantum computer based on superconducting qubits with a star topology. Its advantage is minimising the number of swap operations, thus enabling the execution of very deep quantum algorithms. It is expected to have at least 12 qubits. The new quantum computer will be directly connected to the EuroHPC KAROLINA supercomputer located at IT4Innovations in Ostrava. Additionally, it is planned to connect it to other EuroHPC supercomputers, especially those located at other LUMI-Q consortium members, such as the fastest European supercomputer LUMI and the Helios supercomputer, which will be installed at the AGH Academic Computer Centre CYFRONET. 

"Thanks to the integration of resources created by LUMI-Q with the PLGrid Infrastructure, Polish researchers will also have the opportunity to use the quantum computer located in Ostrava. This is an important step for the development not only of national science but also the economy, considering that both scientific and economic institutions can become users," says Professor Kazimierz Wiatr, Director of Cyfronet. 

Quantum computers have a revolutionary potential to introduce a new approach to computing and solving extremely complex computational 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 the unique ability to efficiently solve problems that are too difficult for classical computers. These can include optimisation problems for travel planning, as well as traffic and port management problems. Currently, scientists and researchers are developing other applications that can be found in almost every field of science and industry, such as the automotive industry, developing new electric batteries, energy, finance, pharmaceuticals, quantum chemistry, cryptography, quantum machine learning, and many others. Quantum computers can have a radical impact on scientific research and technological development in all fields, from physics and chemistry to artificial intelligence and bioinformatics. 

"As part of the LUMI-Q consortium, we are committed to the development and provision of a quantum computer capable of solving complex computational problems and pushing the boundaries of modern science," adds Professor Kazimierz Wiatr. 

Institutions collaborating within the LUMI-Q Consortium: 

• VSB – Technical University of Ostrava, IT4Innovations National Supercomputing Center (Czech Republic) – coordinator,  
• CSC – IT Center for Science (Finland), 
• VTT Technical Research Centre of Finland Ltd (Finland), 
• Chalmers University of Technology (Sweden), 
• Danish Technical University (Denmark), 
• AGH Academic Computer Centre CYFRONET  (Poland), 
• Nicolaus Copernicus Astronomical Center (Poland), 
• Sigma2 AS (Norway), 
• Simula Research Lab (Norway), 
• SINTEF AS (Norway), 
• Deutsches Zentrum für Luft- und Raumfahrt / German Aerospace Center (Germany), 
• University of Hasselt (Belgium), 
• TNO Netherlands Organisation for Applied Scientific Research (Netherlands), 
• SURF BV (Netherlands).