On February 6, 2025, the Barcelona Supercomputing Center (BSC-CNS) presented Spain’s first quantum computer, developed entirely with European technology. The event was attended by the President of the Generalitat de Catalunya, Salvador Illa, the Minister of Science, Innovation and Universities, Diana Morant, and the Minister for Digital Transformation and the Civil Service, Óscar López.
The new system was built by a joint venture of Spanish companies Qilimanjaro and GMV, using superconducting qubit technology. It was to be integrated into the MareNostrum 5 supercomputer at BSC, creating a hybrid classical-quantum computing infrastructure. The system was part of the Quantum Spain initiative, which involved 27 research institutions including the 14 nodes of the Spanish Supercomputing Network (RES).
The computer was made available to the scientific community, companies, and public organizations through RES access mechanisms. Funding came from the Recovery, Transformation, and Resilience Plan under the Digital Spain 2026 programme and the National Artificial Intelligence Strategy. BSC noted that the system would be joined by one of the first European analogue quantum computers, awarded through the EuroHPC JU.