Irish Centre for High-End Computing (ICHEC) receives ATOS QLM E
First deployment of the world’s highest-performing commercially available quantum simulator in boost to National Quantum Learning Platform
The Irish Centre for High-End Computing has received the GPU-accelerated Quantum Learning Machine Enhanced (Atos QLM E) from Atos. ICHEC is the National High-Performance Computing (HPC) Centre which manages the Irish National supercomputer ‘Kay’ on behalf of the State, The Atos QLM-E is the world's highest-performing commercially available quantum simulator, offering up to 12 times more computation speed than the original Atos QLM. The Atos QLM E is also an integral component of the 'NEASQC' project, in the €1bn European flagship quantum initiative, of which Ireland is a partner along with 11 other European companies and research labs, and which is coordinated by Atos.
The Atos QLM E will be integrated with the Irish National supercomputer ‘Kay’ and equipped with a variety of quantum software programming tools. As a hybrid HPC-Quantum Computing environment, the integrated Kay-Atos QLM E platform will serve the Quantum Programming Ireland (QPI) Initiative for conducting R&D and National-level skills development activities in quantum technologies by ICHEC as well as other Irish organisations in academia, enterprise and the public sector.
Once the Atos QLM E is delivered on-site, Atos will provide a fast-track training programme. Atos will also provide ongoing system enhancements to ensure that the simulator delivers the functionality required in the fast-moving discipline of quantum computing.
Commenting on the deployment of the ATOS QLM-E Prof. Jean-Christophe ("JC") Desplat, Director at ICHEC, said: “As Ireland’s high-performance computing authority, we’re committed to using the power of technology to solve some of the toughest challenges across the public, academic and enterprise sectors. Working with a number of partners in Europe, we look forward to utilising the Atos QLM E related for R&D on a number of scientific and industry-relevant quantum computing use-cases and supporting scientific breakthroughs in high-performance computing.”
Agnès Boudot, Senior Vice President, Head of HPC & Quantum at Atos, said: “As the first Atos QLM E deployed globally, this partnership marks an important milestone in our quantum programme. We look forward to supporting ICHEC in its quantum journey, helping explore the huge potential that quantum computing offers. The simulator will support a scalable, future-proof, framework for the porting of hybrid applications and for the training and skills development of Irish researchers, and ICHEC’s partners across Europe.”
Atos QLM E has been optimised to drastically reduce the simulation time of hybrid classical-quantum algorithms simulations, leading to quicker progress in application research. ICHEC is advancing quantum computing platforms and programming. The Quantum Programming Ireland (QPI) Initiative set-up by ICHEC in 2018 was designed to advance:
- Development of practical applications on currently available quantum computing platforms (hardware and software simulators).
- Research and development in software to enable programming quantum computing platforms.
- Education and training for the academic and enterprise communities.
Under the Quantum Programming Initiative, ICHEC is developing the software ecosystem and programming expertise for quantum platforms. Projects in this domain include:
- EU Quantum Flagship NExt ApplicationS of Quantum Computing (NEASQC).
- Quantum Natural Language Processing (QNLP).
- Quantum Chemistry Analysis of PFAS Pollutants (QPFAS).
- Efficient Quantum Circuit Simulations on Exascale Systems (QuantEx).
- ICHEC is also hosting the 2nd Quantum Flagship European Quantum. Technologies Conference in Dublin, Ireland in November 2021.
In 2016, Atos launched ‘Atos Quantum’ an ambitious programme to anticipate the future of quantum computing. As a result of this initiative, Atos was the first organisation to offer a quantum noise simulation module within its Atos QLM offer. Atos QLM is being used in numerous countries worldwide including Austria, Finland, France, Germany, India, Italy, Japan, the Netherlands, Senegal, UK and the United States, empowering major research programs in various sectors like industry or energy. Recently, Atos introduced “Q-score”, the first universal quantum metrics reference, applicable to all programmable quantum processors.
