NordiQuEst: Nordic-Estonian Quantum Computing e-Infrastructure Quest

NordiQuEst is a collaborative effort between four Nordic countries (Norway, Sweden, Finland, and Denmark) and Estonia to build a dedicated Nordic-Estonian quantum computing (QC) ecosystem that integrates various quantum computers and emulators make them accessible to the Nordic-Estonian region to accelerate QC research, development, and education.

NordiQuest gathers a Nordic consortium of 7 partners from 5 NeIC countries, each with the complementary expertise and resources required for laying the foundation of this new infrastructure. The consortium comprises some of the best quantum expertise globally. NordIQuEst represents a unique effort to pool and federate resources from different NeIC member states, in particular by integrating multiple quantum computing services from several organisations, thereby maximally utilising public support by avoiding unnecessary duplication and fragmentation of efforts.

The project was the first academic project to demonstrate a connection between an HPC system (LUMI, at CSC FI) and a Quantum Computer in a different country (QAL 9000, at Chalmers SE) already in April 2022.

The project itself has been a pioneer in the current status of the European landscape, establishing the Nordic countries as forerunners in this quantum computing paradigm. The groundbreaking project was first funded from March 2022 to March 2025, and the results were collected in the NordIQuEst Public Application Library to be useful resources for both experienced developers and students who are taking the first steps in the quantum computing realm. Further, the training activities carried out throughout the project strengthened the Nordic collaboration and further developed the competences of the users in the Nordic countries in relation to Quantum Computing and the resulting training materials are freely available in the aforementioned Library.

Building on the successful outcomes of NordiQuEst, NordiQuEst 2 was funded from March 2026 through 2028. The funding allows for the consortium to hold a forum and present a unified voice, as well as provide a positive environment where it will be possible to identify opportunities to foster the collaboration in the Nordic countries, while maintaining the content in the NordIQuEst Application Library.

Partners

• Chalmers tekniska högskola AB, Sweden
• CSC - IT Center for Science Ltd., Finland
• DTU – Technical University of Denmark, Denmark
• SINTEF, Norway
• SRL - Simula Research Laboratory AS, Norway
• VTT - VTT Technical Research Centre of Finland Ltd, Finland
• National Competence Center for HPC & AI, Iceland

Funding Source

• NeIC, under CSC - IT Center for Science