Sept. 26, 2024 — The procurement contract for the EuroQCS-France quantum computer, Lucy, has been signed by the European High Performance Computing Joint Undertaking (EuroHPC JU) and the selected French-German vendor partnership, including Quandela and attocube.

Lucy will be a digital, MOSAIQ-12 photonic quantum computer, offering 12 physical qubits.

The new system will be available to a wide range of European end-users, from the scientific community to industry and the public sector. The specific architecture of the Lucy universal quantum computer will enable the resolution of existing problems and the discovery of new use cases. Coupled with the GENCI supercomputer Joliot-Curie, operated by CEA, it will allow the exploration of numerous hybrid HPC-Quantum Computing workloads for topics such as electromagnetic simulation, structural mechanics, engine combustion, material simulation, meteorology and earth observation.

Named after a derivative of the Latin word “lux,” which means “light,” this single-photon based quantum computer will boost European innovation. It will support the development of a wide range of applications with industrial, scientific and societal relevance for Europe, adding new capabilities to the European supercomputing infrastructure.

Owned by the EuroHPC JU, the system will be hosted by GENCI (Grand Equipement National de Calcul Intensif, France), installed and operated at TGCC (Très Grand Centre de calcul du CEA (Commissariat à l’énergie atomique et aux énergies alternatives, France), one of the three national computing centres in France.

The installation of the system will start in 2025.

The EuroQCS-France consortium is led by GENCI as hosting entity and CEA as hosting site, with the University Politehnica of Bucharest (UPB, Romania), Forschungszentrum Jülich (FZJ, Germany) and Irish Centre for High-End Computing (ICHEC, Ireland) as members.

The total cost of the system is around EUR 8.5 million and will be co-funded by the EuroHPC JU (50%) and France (50%).

The consortium led by Quandela and attocube has been selected following a call for tender launched in January 2024. On June 2023, the EuroHPC JU signed hosting agreements with six sites across Europe to host & operate EuroHPC quantum computers.

In 2024, the EuroHPC JU has announced the signatures of the procurement contracts for the EuroQCS-Poland quantum computer and the LUMI-Q consortium’s quantum computer.

The selection of six hosting entities followed the view of offering the widest possible variety of different European quantum computing platforms and hybrid classical-quantum architectures, giving Europe the opportunity to be at the forefront of this emerging field, and to provide European users with access to diverse and complementary quantum technologies.

This initiative offers a novel interpretation of quantum computers as accelerator platforms in genuine HPC environments. The foreseen integration will require essential R&D developments towards a hybrid software stack managing both HPC and quantum computing (QC) workloads. During the integration work, all Hosting Entities will collaborate closely with European Standardisation bodies.

These six quantum computers will come on top of two analogue quantum simulators procured under the EuroHPC JU project HPCQS and which are based on neutral atoms, supplied by the French company PASQAL. HPCQS aims to develop and coordinate a cloud-based European federated infrastructure, tightly integrating two quantum computers, each controlling 100-plus qubits in the Tier-0 HPC systems Joliot-Curie of GENCI and the JURECA modular supercomputer at the Julich Supercomputing Centre (JSC).

About EuroHPC JU

The EuroHPC Joint Undertaking (EuroHPC JU) is a legal and funding entity created in 2018 to enable the European Union and EuroHPC participating countries to coordinate their efforts and pool their resources with the objective of making Europe a world leader in supercomputing. In order to equip Europe with a world-leading supercomputing infrastructure, the EuroHPC JU has already procured nine supercomputers, located across Europe. Three of these EuroHPC supercomputers are now ranked among the world’s top 10 most powerful supercomputers: LUMI in Finland, Leonardo in Italy and MareNostrum 5 in Spain.  No matter where in Europe they are located, European scientists and users from the public sector and industry can benefit from these EuroHPC supercomputers via the EuroHPC Access Calls to advance science and support the development of a wide range of applications with industrial, scientific and societal relevance for Europe.

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Source: EuroHPC JU