PRESS RELEASE, Ostrava 23 September 2025
The first Czech quantum computer was officially launched at the Technical University of Ostrava in the presence of prominent Czech and European representatives. It is one of the first quantum computers in Europe, named VLQ and installed in the IT4Innovations national supercomputing centre on the university campus. The LUMI-Q consortium, a pan-European consortium of thirteen partners from eight countries, is involved in its acquisition and operation. VLQ will serve a wide range of European users.
“This major milestone marks another step towards building a world-class quantum computing infrastructure in Europe and supports research and innovation across the continent. It is a significant event not only for the university, but also for Ostrava, which will go down in history as the site of the first Czech quantum computer,” said Igor Ivan, Rector of VŠB-TUO.
The VLQ quantum computer will allow researchers to explore new algorithms and applications in areas such as quantum machine learning, drug and vaccine development, new materials design, transport optimization, the financial sector, security and defence, and predicting the performance of renewable energy sources.
“The VLQ quantum computer will serve a wide range of European users – from academic institutions to industrial enterprises to the public sector. Primarily it will support research and innovation, its capabilities will be accessible to all users across Europe through the EuroHPC JU association,” added Vít Vondrák, Director of IT4Innovations of the National Supercomputing Centre of VŠB – Technical University Ostrava.
VLQ will not operate as an isolated computing system. Like other quantum computers, the EuroHPC JU will be integrated into the European High Performance Computing (HPC) infrastructure. In Ostrava, it is directly connected to the Karolina supercomputer, which allows combining classical and quantum computing.
“With VLQ, Europe is taking another decisive step towards establishing a world-class quantum computing ecosystem. By combining the power of our supercomputers with state-of-the-art quantum technologies, we are giving European users the tools to find solutions that were previously unattainable. Today’s inauguration is also a testament to the power of European collaboration: together we are laying the foundations for breakthroughs that will shape the future of science, technology and society,” said Anders Jensen, Director of EuroHPC JU.
The ceremony took place at the IT4Innovations national supercomputer centre in Ostrava, which is part of the Technical University of Ostrava. The significance of the event was supported by distinguished guests, in addition to the Executive Director of EuroHPC JU, Anders Jensen, the Finnish Ambassador to the Czech Republic, Pasi Olavi Tuominen, representatives of Czech ministries, rectors of Czech universities and representatives of the LUMI-Q consortium.
VLQ is a quantum computer with 24 physical qubits and a unique star topology. This technology offers a connection between qubits that significantly increases the efficiency of quantum computing, thus differentiating VLQ from competing machines. The topology offers a computational advantage by minimizing the number of so-called swap operations.
The system was supplied by IQM Quantum Computers and its total purchase price was approximately EUR 5 million (CZK 125 million). Half of the cost was financed by EuroHPC JU and the other half by the LUMI-Q consortium. The consortium is made up of thirteen partners from eight European countries, led by the Czech Republic and including Belgium, Denmark, Finland, the Netherlands, Norway, Poland and Sweden.
More interesting facts about the VLQ quantum computer:
- VLQ contains 24 superconducting qubits arranged in a star topology.
- From the end of 2025, the VLQ will be accessible to researchers, companies and the public sector across Europe.
- For VLQ to work, its qubits must be kept at an extremely low temperature – just 0.01 Kelvin above absolute zero (about -273.14 °C), colder than space. This “freezing” state is provided by a special cryostat, part of which resembles a shiny gold chandelier with several tiers and weighing about 300 kg. Such cooling is necessary because even a slight heating could destroy the fragile quantum states of qubits. The chip itself is placed at the bottom of the cryostat and to achieve such extremely low operating temperatures, quantum effects that occur when helium isotopes are mixed are exploited.
- Despite the demanding cooling, the power consumption of the quantum chip itself is very low, in the order of kilowatts. Most of the power is consumed by the supporting infrastructure and cooling equipment, but this is still incomparably less than conventional supercomputers, which require megawatts of power.
The name VLQ refers to:
- V (VŠB – Technical University Ostrava, where it is located),
- L (LUMI-Q consortium),
- Q (Quantum Computing).
At the same time, it is a paraphrase of the wolf, which is the symbol of the LUMI supercomputer, because it is from this consortium that LUMI-Q originated.
EuroHPC JU
The EuroHPC JU is a legal and financial entity established by a Council Regulation of the European Union, which brings together the European Union, interested States and private entities to coordinate efforts and pool resources with the ambition of making Europe a world leader in supercomputing, quantum computing and artificial intelligence.
To equip Europe with a state-of-the-art computing and data infrastructure, the JU has already acquired a total of 11 supercomputers spread across Europe through the EuroHPC. Three of these EuroHPC supercomputers are now ranked among the 10 most powerful supercomputers in the world. European scientists and users from the public sector and industry can use EuroHPC supercomputers wherever they are located in Europe, thus moving science forward and supporting the development of a wide range of applications with industrial, scientific and societal benefits for Europe.
Currently, EuroHPC JU is also involved in the implementation of 13 so-called AI factories across Europe, which offer SMEs and startups free, tailored support. In the field of quantum technologies, EuroHPC JU plans to install 10 quantum computers in selected member countries, with the VLQ quantum computer being among the first.
EuroHPC JU also funds research and innovation projects to build a full European supply chain in supercomputing – from the processors and software to the applications that will run on these supercomputers, to the know-how needed to develop strong European expertise in HPC.
IT4Innovations national supercomputing centre
IT4Innovations National Supercomputing Centre is a higher education institute of VŠB – Technical University Ostrava, a leading research, development and innovation centre in the field of high-performance computing (HPC), data analysis (HPDA), artificial intelligence (AI), quantum computing (QC) and their applications to other scientific, industrial and social fields. Since 2013, IT4Innovations has been operating the most powerful supercomputing systems in the Czech Republic, which it provides to both Czech and foreign research teams from the academic and private spheres.
IT4Innovations together with CESNET and CERIT-SC form the strategic research infrastructure of the Czech Republic e-INFRA CZ. Currently, IT4Innovations operates two supercomputers: the Barbora (849 TFlop/s, installed in autumn 2019) and the most powerful Czech publicly accessible supercomputer Karolina (15.7 PFlop/s, installed in summer 2021), which was acquired within the EuroHPC JU and provides its capacity to the European research and industrial community.
In addition to the supercomputers operated by IT4Innovations, the Czech research community also has access to one of Europe’s most powerful supercomputers, LUMI, thanks to IT4Innovations’ membership in the consortium of the same name. In 2025, the first Czech quantum computer VLQ, operated by the LUMI-Q consortium, was installed at IT4Innovations.
IT4Innovations’ core research topics are big data processing and analysis, machine learning, development of parallel scalable algorithms and algorithms for quantum computers and simulators, solving challenging engineering problems, advanced visualization, virtual reality, modeling for nanotechnology and development of new materials. More at www.it4i.cz.
Contact for media
Zuzana Červenková, spokesperson of IT4Innovations national supercomputer centre
zuzana.cervenkova@vsb.cz
tel.: +420 602 593 335
