Spain and EU launch new €10 million quantum computer in Barcelona
Published on 28/05/2026 - 21:50 GMT+2•Updated 21:54 Spain has unveiled its third quantum supercomputer,...
Published on 28/05/2026 - 21:50 GMT+2•Updated 21:54
Spain has unveiled its third quantum supercomputer, a 9.8-million-euro investment to speed up research and artificial intelligence (AI). The Barcelona Supercomputing Center (BSC) has added a third quantum computer, which will be integrated into the MareNostrum 5 system, capable of combining classical supercomputing, artificial intelligence and quantum computing.
The new machine has been designed and built by Barcelona-based company Qilimanjaro Quantum Tech and has been funded by the European Commission and Spain’s Secretariat of State for Digitalisation and Artificial Intelligence. It is an analogue quantum computer, unlike the two previously installed quantum computers, which are digital.
While classical computers work with bits, which can only take the value 0 or 1 at any given moment, quantum computing uses qubits, which can represent both states at the same time. This capability makes it possible to develop far more powerful algorithms and tackle problems that traditional computers can barely solve.
MareNostrum Ona: 53 research projects
The three quantum computers at the BSC are housed in the chapel of Torre Girona, the same space that between 2005 and 2023 hosted the first four versions of the MareNostrum supercomputer.
The quantum partition of MareNostrum 5 is known as MareNostrum Ona. Its first two machines, launched in February 2025, have already clocked up 4,200 hours of computing since their inauguration. This time has been shared between 53 research projects selected through official calls by the Spanish Supercomputing Network (RES).
100% European technology
This new quantum computer will be integrated into the European quantum computing network, driven by the European High Performance Computing Joint Undertaking (EuroHPC JU), the programme through which the European Union seeks to strengthen its supercomputing capabilities and develop its own technological infrastructure.
To date, EuroHPC JU has acquired six quantum computers located in different European countries. Three of them, installed in Poland, the Czech Republic and Germany, have already been inaugurated and form part of a future network of interconnected systems for scientific research and technological development.
The Catalan government’s Minister for Research and Universities, Núria Montserrat, stressed that this project “reinforces the idea of European technological sovereignty vis-à-vis US ‘big tech’”. “By using technologies developed here, in the supercomputer, with Catalan and Spanish public policies and major partnerships with Europe, we are able to produce our own European technology in pursuit of strategic autonomy so as not to depend on third countries,” she concluded.
