Nvidia Plans to Power Japan’s Quantum Research Supercomputer

Japan’s new ABCI-Q supercomputer will be powered by Nvidia's technology for accelerated and quantum computing, the company announced at its GTC conference.

ABCI-Q is a quantum-AI hybrid cloud infrastructure designed for anyone to experiment with quantum computing technology as part of Japan’s national quantum computing initiative. It aims to accelerate the creation of use cases that contribute to the societal implementation of quantum technology in fields such as AI, energy and biology.

Researchers expect to initially carry out experiments using quantum simulations on classical high-performance computers. These can migrate to future quantum computers when sufficiently powerful models become available.

ABCI-Q will integrate with Nvidia’s CUDA-Q open-source hybrid quantum computing platform that offers simulation tools and capabilities to program hybrid quantum-classical systems. The supercomputer also uses Nvidia H100 Tensor Core GPUs in nodes that are interconnected using the Nvidia Quantum-2 InfiniBand networking platform.

Fujitsu is building ABCI-Q at the ABCI supercomputing center of the Global Research and Development Center for Business by Quantum-AI Technology (G-QuAT) National Institute of Advanced Industrial Science and Technology (AIST). The company expects to deploy ABCI-Q early next year.

Related:Fujitsu Speeds Up Quantum Simulation by 200 Times

“Researchers need high-performance simulation to tackle the most difficult problems in quantum computing,” said Nvidia director of high-performance computing and quantum computing Tim Costa.

“CUDA-Q and the Nvidia H100 equip pioneers such as those at ABCI to make critical advances and speed the development of quantum-integrated supercomputing.”

Researchers will be able to use the ABCI-Q to advance quantum circuit simulation and quantum machine learning, build classical-quantum hybrid systems and develop new algorithms inspired by quantum technology.

“ABCI-Q will let Japanese researchers explore quantum computing technology to test and accelerate the development of its practical applications,” said G-QuAT/AIST deputy director Masahiro Horibe.

“The Nvidia CUDA-Q platform and Nvidia H100 will help these scientists pursue the next frontiers of quantum computing research.”

Nvidia and G-QuAT/AIST also plan to collaborate on industrial applications using ABCI-Q.