Update: Digital Europe Program Targets Deployment Path for AI, HPC, and Cybersecurity

At SC17 in Denver, the Japanese RIKEN K computer emerged for the third straight time as the world's most powerful supercomputer based on the High Performance Conjugate Gradient (HPCG) benchmark list. Although China's Tianhe-2 supercomputer has been widely seen as number one in the world based on its LINPAC rating, the HPCG test that the K computer excelled on may be more representative of the range of real-world HPC problems encounter by users. Riken's K computer has been either number one or two since the HPCG list came out in 2014.

This Quick Take looks at the growing availability of commercial cloud-based quantum computing (QC), supported through either direct access to true QC systems or QC simulators based on traditional digital hardware. In addition to QC hardware, most cloud-based QC providers are also rolling out their own software development environments to help existing and new QC software developers more effectively explore QC programming. The choice of options for potential QC users is growing, and each of the QC providers offers a distinct take on QC architecture and programming.