Atos provides quantum simulator to Irish supercomputing body

Atos has announced it will deliver its first quantum simulator to the Irish Centre for High-End Computing (ICHEC).

The GPU-accelerated Atos Quantum Learning Machine Enhanced (Atos QLM E) is, according to the company, the world's highest-performing commercially available quantum simulator, intended to reduce the times taken to simulate quantum algorithms, thus speeding up application research.

The simulator is to be integrated with Ireland’s national supercomputer, known as Kay, and used to conduct research and development as well as skill development in the field of quantum technologies for academic, enterprise and public sector organisations.

In a press release, Professor Jean-Christophe Desplat, Director at ICHEC, said: “As Ireland’s high performance computing authority, we’re committed to using the power of technology to solve some of the toughest challenges across public, academic and enterprise sectors. Working with a number of partners across Europe, we look forward to utilizing the Atos QLM E related for R&D on a number of scientific and industry-relevant quantum computing use-cases and supporting scientific breakthroughs in high-performance computing.”

The QLM E is part of a €1bn European initiative coordinated by Atos to explore industrial and financial use cases for quantum computing. Since 2016, the company has been running a programme to anticipate the future of quantum computing and recently announced a Q-score to grade quantum performance.

Agnès Boudot, Senior Vice President, Head of HPC & Quantum at Atos, said: “As the first Atos QLM E deployed globally, this partnership marks an important milestone in our Quantum Program. We look forward to supporting ICHEC on their quantum journey, helping them explore with their users the huge potential that quantum computing offers. The solution will provide a scalable, future-proof, national framework for the porting of hybrid applications, and for the training and skills development of Irish researchers, and ICHEC’s partners across Europe.”