The European High Performance Computing Joint Undertaking (EuroHPC JU) selected six sites across the EU to host the first European quantum computers, with the Czech Republic among them. According to the EuroHPC JU announcement, the LUMI-Q consortium’s quantum computer would be located at the IT4Innovations National Supercomputing Centre in Ostrava. The other five host countries were Germany, Spain, France, Italy, and Poland.
Supported by the Ministry of Education, Youth and Sports, the LUMI-Q consortium was led by the Czech Republic and included partners from Finland, Sweden, Denmark, Poland, Norway, Belgium, the Netherlands, and Germany. The total planned investment across all six quantum computer sites exceeded EUR 100 million (approximately $100 million), co-funded equally by the EuroHPC JU and 17 participating countries.
Vit Vondrak, Director of IT4Innovations, said the selection would enable the creation of “a cutting-edge ecosystem for quantum computing” where quantum technologies would be integrated into the existing European supercomputing infrastructure. The LUMI-Q system was planned to use superconducting qubits in a star-shaped topology, to be integrated with the Karolina supercomputer already operated at IT4Innovations.