Brandenburg funds the Center for Quantum Computing with € 12.8 million

The State of Brandenburg is supporting the research and development of applications for novel quantum computers at DESY in Zeuthen. With a funding amount of 12.8 million Euro for five years from the future investment fund of the State of Brandenburg, a new Center for Quantum Technology Applications (CQTA) is being set up at the location. In the center, researchers from DESY, but also external partners from research and industry, are given access to quantum computers in order to calculate existing problems and to design and optimize new applications for quantum computers.

Brandenburg Minister of Science Manja Schüle says: “From the energy industry to medicine: In areas in which many conditions have to be calculated in a complex and reciprocal way, quantum computing can be the solution in the future. I am very pleased that a center for quantum technology applications will be established at DESY in Zeuthen in the coming years. We are happy to support this development. I am convinced: This means that our State will take on a leading role in this area and will also have an international impact. In the Zeuthen center, researchers from universities, scientific institutions and industry will develop new applications for complex quantum systems. The center has great strategic importance for digitization in Brandenburg. Quantum computing is a game changer, quantum computing is a quantum leap for the region – for the future of science and business.”

“Quantum technologies and quantum computers in particular are undergoing rapid development around the world and hold the promise of unimagined possibilities for research, however, in some cases this also requires completely new approaches. With its scientific excellence and competence, DESY will not only actively participate in this development, but will also help to shape it,” says Christian Stegmann, DESY Director for astroparticle physics and Head of the DESY location in Zeuthen.

Quantum computing is based on quantum mechanics principles and therefore offers the fascinating possibility of solving scientific problems with the help of simulations or calculations that are very difficult, often impossible to solve on classic computers. The problem: Computers that work with this new type of technology have to be operated and “fed” with data in a very different way to classic computers. At the CQTA in Zeuthen, research is now to be carried out on how the new possibilities promised by quantum computing can be ideally exploited.

“Quantum computing can lead to a paradigm shift in the way we calculate and do science,” says DESY scientist Karl Jansen, who initiated and will head the CQTA in Zeuthen. “With the center in Zeuthen, we have reached a milestone in anchoring quantum computing in Brandenburg and creating a hub for the development of applications for this in industry and science far beyond Brandenburg.”

In the CQTA, new types of applications for complex quantum systems will be developed and optimization algorithms on quantum computers for current and future problems will be worked out. No separate quantum computing hardware is set up for this, rather privileged access to commercial systems is granted in close cooperation with industry, universities and research institutions. This makes it possible always to have access to the latest and most modern hardware of the rapidly developing field and at the same time to find benchmarking and powerful, effective areas of application that are tailored to this.

In addition, the focus is on training the next generation in these applications in order to prepare them for the daily use of quantum computing that is expected in the future.

In the medium term, the CQTA is to be embedded in an overall strategy for quantum technologies at DESY. A task force made up of scientists from Hamburg and Zeuthen is currently preparing a white paper on this.


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