Digital Realty is to host a quantum computer at one of its colocation data centers in Amsterdam, the Netherlands.
The company this week announced it would host a quantum system for SURF at the AMS17 facility in Amsterdam’s Science Park.
Co-funded by the EuroHPC JU program, the quantum computer will be deployed by SURF directly next to its existing national supercomputer, Snellius.
The quantum computer is expected to initially incorporate a minimum of 16 physical qubits. Further details weren’t shared.
SURF first announced plans to procure a quantum computer back in October 2024.
"We’re excited to partner with SURF to bring this pioneering quantum computing technology to the Netherlands," said Chris Sharp, Digital Realty CTO. "This collaboration underscores our broader commitment to supporting cutting-edge technological advancements and providing our customers with the foundation to access the most advanced computing solutions available. From cloud and AI to quantum and beyond, we remain dedicated to empowering innovation at every stage of technological evolution."
“Co-location of a quantum computer in a professional data center is very different from co-location of any regular ICT equipment, with respect to the setup, requirements and procedures. Therefore, our partnership with Digital Realty is extremely important to make the installation and operations of such system a success,” added Axel Berg, innovation manager, emerging technologies and applications, at SURF, and coordinator of the EuroHPC Quantum project.
Snellius was installed in September 2021 by Lenovo and has since been expanded in two phases with more compute nodes and storage. The last expansion of the system was put in production in July 2024, and added 88 nodes with Nvidia H100 GPUs.
AMS17, also known as the Amsterdam Data Tower, was officially opened in 2016 by Digital Realty. The facility totals 67,000 sq ft (6,200 sqm) and more than 7MW.
While a number of supercomputing labs have quantum computers, to date such systems have rarely been deployed in retail colocation facilities.
Most quantum computing firms offer access to quantum systems through the cloud, with the QPUs hosted in dedicated quantum data centers rather than colo environments.
Oxford Quantum Circuits has deployed quantum computers in Centersquare’s LHR3 facility in Reading, UK, and Equinix’s TY11 facility in Tokyo, Japan. The quantum computer in Reading is hosted in a former tape library. In Tokyo, the OQC deployment is in a cage in the data hall.
