On April 26, 2023, IonQ announced a new agreement with Abu Dhabi’s Quantum Research Center at the Technology Innovation Institute (QRC-TII). According to the press release, the agreement provided QRC-TII with access to IonQ’s Aria trapped-ion quantum computer for testing and executing quantum algorithms.
Peter Chapman, then CEO and President of IonQ, said the agreement reflected growing interest in quantum computing across the region. Professor Jose Ignacio Latorre, Chief Researcher at QRC-TII, said access to IonQ Aria would allow developers to test and optimize novel quantum-enhanced algorithms for computational challenges ranging from variational quantum circuits for optimization to quantum simulation.
IonQ noted that the UAE government had allocated millions of dollars to support QRC-TII in recent years. The agreement expanded TII’s access to quantum hardware platforms beyond its in-house superconducting processors, adding a trapped-ion architecture to its research capabilities.