On October 11, 2022, the Spanish government announced that Spain had been selected by the European High Performance Computing Joint Undertaking (EuroHPC JU) to host one of Europe’s first quantum computers. The new infrastructure was to be installed at the Barcelona Supercomputing Center – Centro Nacional de Supercomputación (BSC-CNS) and integrated into the MareNostrum 5 supercomputer.
The investment in Spain was set at €12.5 million (~$12.1 million), 50 percent co-financed by the EU and the Secretary of State for Digitalisation and Artificial Intelligence. Five other countries were selected alongside Spain: Germany, the Czech Republic, France, Italy, and Poland. The new quantum computers were expected to be available in the second half of 2023 for research and development purposes.
The selection was described as one of the first results of the Quantum Spain programme, launched in 2021. The BSC-CNS, a public consortium formed by the Ministry of Science and Innovation, the Generalitat de Catalunya, and the Universitat Politècnica de Catalunya, was to oversee the operation of the new quantum computer on behalf of the EuroHPC JU. The infrastructure was to be built entirely with European hardware and software.