UK’s National Quantum Technologies Programme: Seeking to Translate Technical Gains into Commercial Opportunity

IBM's recent announcement of their new Q System One universal quantum computer is yet another milestone in the firm's long-term commitment to transitioning quantum computing (QC) hardware from one-off research status into a capable commercial offering. Although the new Q System One, as announced, does not demonstrate any significant advances in current quantum computing capability, as measured by the number of qubits per system, it does show that IBM can design and manufacture a system that, at the right price, could be attractive to a wide range of users looking to integrate quantum computing into their overall R&D process.

On April 16, 2018, Hewlett Packard Enterprise (HPE) in conjunction with SUSE and Arm teamed up with three leading UK universities to form the Catalyst UK program with the objective of accelerating the adoption of HPC by industry in the UK. The three-year program will center on the installation of an Arm processor-based supercomputer deployment spread across the University of Edinburgh, the University of Bristol, and the University of Leicester, due to be completed in summer 2018. In addition, the program is looking to reach out to UK industry to jointly develop Arm-based applications and workflows. Hyperion Research believes this effort is an important indicator of the UK’s commitment to building an indigenous HPC ecosystem centered on Arm processors, and one that could have wider implications for bolstering Arm-based HPC adoption in future European HPC designs.