With its acquisition of an on-site 20-qubit IQM Radiance quantum computer, the Department of Energy's Oak Ridge National Laboratory has taken another major stride forward in its research efforts to integrate quantum computing technology with classical high-performance computing (HPC). The new system, named Pathfinder, was launched June 15 in the Quantum Computer Deployment Lab at ORNL's Translational Research Capability (TRC) building.
"By adding Pathfinder to the array of cutting-edge systems available to our computational scientists, ORNL deepens its commitment to making the U.S. a leader in quantum science and technology," said ORNL Director Stephen Streiffer. The IQM system was procured through the Institutional Capital Equipment program.
Founded in 2018, Finland-based IQM Quantum Computers is a leading commercial builder of full-stack quantum computers.
"ORNL has been at the frontier of American science for decades. Bringing IQM's first-ever U.S. on-premises quantum computer here represents a significant milestone for us as we continue to expand our global footprint and put quantum capability into the hands of world-class institutions that can advance quantum adoption," said Jan Goetz, CEO and co-founder of IQM.
In addition to Quoll, the 6-qubit Quantum Brilliance cluster installed at the Oak Ridge Leadership Computing Facility (OLCF) last September, Pathfinder will enable researchers at ORNL's Quantum Science Center (QSC) to develop new applications, algorithms and architectures by using the more powerful quantum-centric HPC (QHPC) paradigm. As a member of the QSC, IQM is supporting the center's mission to build the next generation of quantum computing. Meanwhile, ORNL researchers, in multiple divisions that span the quantum sciences and technology, will accelerate their work to establish a hardware-agnostic software architecture for merging the capabilities of two very different computing technologies.
"On-premises systems enable us to demonstrate quantum computing concepts that realize our goal of building a scalable, hybrid HPC ecosystem," said QSC Director Travis Humble. "The presence of the IQM Radiance quantum computer on campus has already accelerated integration with our world-class HPC capabilities. Our research teams are now developing new methods and tools to demonstrate applications in materials simulations, chemistry and artificial intelligence."
Quantum computing - a technology still in its early stages of development compared to classical supercomputers such as the OLCF's exascale-class Frontier - utilizes quantum bits, or qubits, to perform calculations. Unlike binary bits used by classical computers, qubits don't employ only ones and zeros to encode information. Rather, they use a quantum superposition of ones and zeros that may exponentially increase processing power for certain kinds of problems, such as the quantum mechanical interactions of particles. However, many quantum computers today are susceptible to high error rates because their qubits are very sensitive to temperature shifts, electromagnetic noise and even cosmic radiation.
IQM's Radiance system is based on superconducting technology, which means its qubits must be cooled to a fraction of a degree above absolute zero to remove electrical resistance and maintain fragile quantum states. Pathfinder is chilled by a Bluefors cryosystem with helium compressors that cool the IQM system to 4 kelvin, while a gas-handling system keeps the superconducting internals at a base temperature of less than 10 millikelvin.
ORNL's TRC building, completed in 2025, was designed specifically for quantum information science research. Its sensitive-equipment laboratories are built on the ground floor to isolate their slabs and the spaces adjacent to them, thereby enabling high local vibration control at 250 microinches. For its use in hybrid computing research, Pathfinder will be connected to HPC systems in the National Center for Computational Sciences (NCCS) Technology Integration Group's test bed, which is actually located in a different building on the ORNL campus.
Teams of quantum science researchers, in close collaboration with the OLCF, will use Pathfinder and Quoll in their development of an open software stack for hybrid computing that can be used across different brands of computers, which usually have their own proprietary software.
"Our idea is to formalize the interfaces for QHPC so you can have more uniform ways of running applications and integrating different types of hardware without having to change your entire infrastructure every time," said HPC systems software engineer Amir Shehata, who is leading the IQM integration effort in the Quantum-HPC Group in NCCS. Now, QSC researchers will demonstrate how their Open Quantum-HPC Software Ecosystem operates on real systems as they develop it.
"The work we've been doing here so far has been using simulators to take the place of the quantum computers. But now that we have the IQM and Quantum Brilliance machines, we can start trying to see if those architectures that we developed actually work when we couple them to a physical machine," Shehata said.
The OLCF is a DOE Office of Science user facility at ORNL that is supported by DOE's Advanced Scientific Computing Research program. The QSC is a DOE National Quantum Information Science Research Center headquartered at ORNL.
To learn more about IQM, view their release here .
UT-Battelle manages ORNL for DOE's Office of Science, the single largest supporter of basic research in the physical sciences in the United States. DOE's Office of Science is working to address some of the most pressing challenges of our time. For more information, visit energy.gov/science .
