Germany will have IBM’s quantum computer

Germany’s Fraunhofer Institute has made a deal with IBM to place one of its Q System One quantum computers in Germany to become a hub for quantum computing research and German government will invest €650 million over the next two years to support the transition of quantum computing to commercial applications.

IBM has unveil his Q System One quantum computer at CES 2019 in january this year. The IBM Q System One is a 20-qubit quantum computer that will be owned by IBM and located at one of its facilities in Germany. Access to the machine will be provided to European researchers will be provided through the cloud by Fraunhofer. The expectation is to develop a concentration of quantum skills in Germany covering academia, research, IT professionals and industry users.

As part of the IBM Q Network, organizations using the quantum computer are able to receive support, training, and enablement from IBM.

“Federal funds of 650 million euros will be invested in research and the development of quantum technology over the period until 2022,” said Anja Karliczek, German Federal Minister of Education and Research, in a statement issued by IBM. “It is vital that we now begin developing various fields of application for quantum computing, not least for small and medium-sized companies, which play a significant role in the German economy,” she added.

Professor Reimund Neugebauer, president of the Fraunhofer Gesellschaft, said: “The installation of an IBM Q System in Europe is unprecedented and opens up the development of quantum computational strategies at the Fraunhofer-Centre under full data sovereignty according to European law.”

IBM has added the Q System One to its arsenal of cloud-accessible quantum computers, first at its existing quantum data center, and at a new one planned for Poughkeepsie, New York. IBM has a fairly extensive set of open-source tools called Qiskit that includes programming libraries for Python, simulators, and will also let you run your code on one of IBM’s cloud-based Quantum computers.

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