British quantum computer developer ORCA Computing will provide the Poznan Supercomputing and Networking Center (PSNC) with two PT-1 quantum photonics systems to accelerate its research and application work in quantum computing across a range of disciplines including biology, chemistry, and machine learning. The systems will be installed at the PSNC’s high-performance computing data center located in Poznan, Poland. The PSNC is a research hub that implements projects under the European Union Framework Programmes, as well as supporting R&D initiatives with partners around the world. “The availability of two on-premise quantum computers from ORCA Computing is a milestone moment for the PSNC and our vision of distributed quantum-classical computing,” said Krzysztof Kurowski, PSNC technical director. “Having direct access to quantum computing technologies will accelerate our understanding of quantum computing and facilitate the development of novel quantum-classical applications.” The ORCA PT is based on programmable bosonic sampling, a scalable method for linear optical quantum computing, using telecom photon wavelengths. The computational results are highly complex statistics that can be used by applications in machine learning and optimization. The system can be integrated with classical high-performance computing HPC solutions and is equipped with a Python-based software development kit that supports hybrid quantum/classical algorithms with quantum processing units and graphical processing units. ORCA’s technology uses single photons as its information carrier, which not only allows the system to be naturally adept at interfacing with networks but also creates a modular, flexible, and upgradable system. ORCA’s use of proprietary multiplexing technology to manipulate the timing, frequency, and routing of single photons also allows it to achieve huge data densities to enable full-scale quantum computing with far fewer components. The PT-1 systems have been procured under the EuroHPC-PL project, a national supercomputing infrastructure project in Poland. Two ORCA systems will be integrated with classical HPC systems and workloads in PSNC quantum computing and quantum communication environment. Under the EuroHPC-PL project, ORCA systems will be used as advanced quantum accelerators integrated with classical EuroHPC-PL environment. PSNC will integrate ORCA systems with other quantum computing technologies and environments. The center is working on software solutions and use cases for the ORCA systems environment. *This story has been updated
