Creotech Instruments to co-develop Polish quantum computer

The European High Performance Computing Joint Undertaking, based in Luxembourg, has selected six countries, Germany, France, Spain, Italy, Czechia and Poland, to build a network of quantum computers in the European Union. The EUR 100m project aims to deploy and integrate quantum computers with supercomputing systems in these countries. Creotech Instruments, a leading Polish provider of specialized electronics for the quantum market, is among the organizations selected to create such a computer in Poland. The quantum computer will be installed, integrated and made available in the HPC infrastructure of the Poznań Supercomputing and Networking Center (PSNC), affiliated with the Institute of Bioorganic Chemistry of the Polish Academy of Sciences. Parallel to this project, the Creotech team is currently also involved in the development of the first large quantum computer for the European Commission. A few days ago, the company concluded a 4-year framework agreement with the European Commission giving it access to financing tools to achieve the latter project’s goals.

“I am proud to see that once again the expertise of our Creotech experts has been recognized by the international community, setting us apart from other companies from the domestic Deep Tech market. I can already reveal that we will have the great pleasure to co-develop the Polish quantum computer project to be launched as part of a distributed network of quantum computers in Germany, France, Spain, Italy, Czechia and Poland. Our team will be tasked with delivering specialized control and measurement electronics in the infrastructure of the Polish quantum computer integrated with the infrastructure of the supercomputer of the Poznan Supercomputing and Networking Center (PSNC) affiliated with the Polish Academy of Sciences,”  said Grzegorz Brona, PhD, President of the Management Board of Creotech Instruments S.A. “There are many important computing tasks that classical supercomputers have been struggling with for years in scientific communities. Quantum computers, including those developed as part of the current project, will address this very issue. The infrastructure’s deployment in Poland will translate into the long-term industrial, scientific and even social development of our country,” he adds.

Quantum calculations leveraging the support of the PSNC’s supercomputing infrastructure and HPC technology will facilitate a range of scientific research and open up new opportunities for industrial innovation. The program, which involves the installation of six quantum computers in these locations, is worth EUR 100m. It is worth noting that Poland’s selection as one of the six European sites to host a quantum computer coincided with the announcement of the winners of this year’s Nobel Prize in physics, Alain Aspect, John F. Clauser and Anton Zeilinger, who developed the scientific foundations for using quantum mechanics in calculations and secure communication.

“Choosing Poland and our center as one of the six European locations for this breakthrough classical-quantum supercomputer architecture shows that our development, commitment and many years of experience have satisfied the stringent requirements set by the European Commission in the field of bleeding edge quantum computing and communication technologies. For many years, the PSNC has been Poland’s representative in the PRACE (Partnership in Advanced Computing in Europe) initiative and has been implementing strategic projects from the Polish Research Infrastructure Map, including the PRACE-LAB and PRACE-LAB2 national supercomputing systems. We are very pleased to have managed to not only build a strong project consortium in partnership with the Polish scientific community and our business partner, Creotech Instruments, but also to involve experts specializing in quantum technologies from the Central and Eastern Europe region, including Latvia, Lithuania, Slovenia, Hungary and Austria,” says Krzysztof Kurowski, PhD (Eng), from the Poznań Supercomputing and Networking Center affiliated with the Institute of Bioorganic Chemistry of the Polish Academy of Sciences.

In 2019, the Creotech Instruments team launched the production of control electronics for next-generation quantum computers. The company also contributes to Sinara, the market’s most advanced qubit control hardware ecosystem, developed with the University of Oxford and other partners.

In addition, since May 2022, Creotech has been involved in a very high-profile business undertaking involving the development of the EU’s first large quantum computer. The project is carried out as part of an international consortium, with Creotech Instruments as the Central and Eastern Europe’s sole representative. The consortium was selected on behalf of the European Commission and is tasked with building a 100-qubit quantum computer by 2025 and achieving technological readiness to deliver a 1000-qubit solution by 2029. The expected budget for the first, 3.5-year phase of the project will total some EUR 18-20m. The undertaking is being carried out under the recent 4-year framework agreement with the European Commission, which provides the company with access to financing tools designed to facilitate the delivery of its objectives. The project will be funded from the Quantum Flagship, a program dedicated to the development of quantum technologies as part of Horizon Europe.

It is estimated that in 2026, the value of the global quantum computer market will reach USD 1bn, up from USD 472m in 2021 (CAGR 30.2%).